The Price of Flight
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: In which flight-minded Witch Olga Romanoff gets a very big challenge. Can she fly this? A spin-off from "Strandpiel"
1. no wedding, one funeral,and a testflight

**Привет в ночь бдительности над свиньями – Happy Hogswatch! Can't find the Russian for** _ **"The price of flight is to be able and prepared to fly anything"**_ **– at least, Google Translate offers phrases, but I'm not sure if they only relate to buying air tickets. I'd quite like to get this one right…**

 **And thanks to reader rga156 and a Russian-spaeaking friend who suggested** **Стоимость авиабилета подразумевает способность и готовность лететь на чем угодно. as a title... _"_** _Stoimost' aviabileta podrazumevayet sposobnost' i gotovnost' letet' na chem ugodno."_ , or "the cost of one's flight ticket is the ability and the willingness to fly anything".

 **v0.3**. Adding a line which I realised was a sitter and begged for inclusion. Also a small but necessary correction made. Thank you to the reader who spotted it!

In which Olga Romanoff realises her deal with flight is like Jason Ogg's bargain with blacksmithing. If you aspire to be the greatest flying Witch on the Discworld, you have to be prepared to fly _**anything**_. Even if it's as bizarre, pointless and ludicrous as putting horseshoes on an ant. You get it in the air. And come down again. And walk away from it. A bit of a spin-off from _**Strandpiel**_ for Hogswatch. For new readers who have not yet tackled _**Strandpiel**_ : this one can stand alone as it's fairly self-explanatory. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes gets a very small background cameo as she is not the central player in this tale but has to be there, as the foreigner in Discworld's "Russia". She learnt to speak a bit of Rus as trainee Witch to Irena and Olga. Eddie is from the Discworld's expy of South Africa and is a wizard who wanted a quiet life, but who ended up, after meeting her during a small but nasty war, married to the globe-trotting Olga. Married to a witch who can get around the world quickly, their married life with twin children involves a lot of travel and two family homes, one in Ankh-Morpork and one in a town which may, in a roundabout way explained elsewhere, end up being called something not entirely unlike _Johannasburg._ Like Ponder Stibbons, another reluctant recipient of a Honour, he is in this world married to a woman with a lively outgoing adventurous streak and is a father of children who promise to be interesting. Xenia Galena is a Witch plus; the plus bit is _Shamaness_ , one who navigates other Worlds apart from this one.

As for how Olga Romanoff got the call-sign of _Syren_ for ground-control purposes... see the footnote for Chapter 59 of _**Strandpiel**_ , which homages a truly terrible late-Victorian work of melodramatic steampunk sci-fi which has the central character of imperious Russian Princess, Olga Romanoff, with a passion for flight and getting even with the all-powerful British Empire. _**Olga Romanoff, Syren Of The Skies**_. Well. that was truly a gift...

Hanna von Strafenburg is a Witch from Überwald, and a deliberate homage to methodically crazy German test pilot Hanna Reitsch, a woman distinguished by flying one of the very last aircraft to get in and out of Berlin in April 1945 against determined opposition - she used the Unter den Linden as a stopgap runway - and a woman who also test-flew some of the more insane Luftwaffe prototypes and survived. Hot damn: discovered an equally nutty woman test pilot for Germany was called Melitta von Stauffenburg. Distantly related to the von Stauffenburg who lead the plot against Hitler, she was - apparently - shot down by an American warplane in the aftermath of the August 1944 bomb, and survived the crash - at first - only to have a relapse and die of her wounds later. Hmmm... Anyway. My Air Police needed a borderline insane test-pilot. Who better...

Now Read On...

* * *

 _ **The Duchy of the Border Marches of Zlobenia and Far Überwald, December. The conversation is of course in Rus. It is largely presented here in Morporkian for the benefit of readers.**_

The old Witch sat in the rocking chair on the wooden verandah of her _isba._ She looked out, impassively, at the people who had gathered in the cleared space outside her home. All looked worried; some had been weeping. The gloomy forest, fir trees with the first dusting of snow, provided an appropriate background. Several Pegasi, the marvellous white flying horses of faraway Ankh-Morpork, were placidly cropping the grass and undergrowth. The local population had marvelled to see them in the sky overhead, and had not been surprised to see them come down in the vicinity of the local _babiushka_ and _ved'ma_ , who lived by choice in an isolated _isba_ some way from the village _._ You expected that sort of thing from Natalia, who had lived long enough to pass on from being a mere _babiuschka_ to the state on its further side, that of _babayuga._

"You made it back, then." Natalia said to the group of Witches who had landed on the flying horses, dismounted, and walked to the isba, the local kulaks falling back to allow their passage. People here respected their _ved'mas_. And when one of them was also Lady Olga, daughter of the Grand Duke, it meant you had to be doubly careful.

They had watched Lady Olga, who under her cloak was dressed as a Cossack, in loose tunic and britches, high riding boots and _ushanka_ fur cap, a long sabre at her left hip and a coiled knout whip on the other. Thoughtful peasants knew what the whip could be used for. Even more thoughtful peasants observed that something about Lady Olga suggested she was, in her essence, a coiled whip. Oh, she'd never actually _used_ it on anyone and it was probably there as part of the authorised walking-out uniform for a lady of the nobility, just a necessary fashion accessory. She probably didn't need to. She was a _ved'ma_ too. Worked these days for the cunning and devious Lord Vetinari in Ankh-Morpork, people said. And if he can get somebody like Lady Olga working for him and taking his instructions, then he really _was_ a devious cunning old bastard.

Most of the other witches with her were not that worthy of attention.

"Oh, that's only young Irena. Grigori Politek's girl. Taking a risk coming back, isn't she? You're a _kulak_ , a peasant. Run away without your Grand Duke's leave, you get knouted if he catches you. Grand Dukes don't like that sort of thing. Got the wrong sort of ideas, too."

"Always was a bit mouthy, young Irena. You know, a bit _Bolshevik_. Hear she got the _dangerous_ ideas out of her head. Went _ved'ma_."

"Yeah. Bolshy little brat."

They wondered about the one who looked as if she hadn't been born to wear the _telegroika_ padded winter clothing. Really vivid red hair, a lot more vivid than Lady Olga's auburn red, wearing some sort of shorter, wider sword at her left hip, and an _ushanka_ fur cap like a normal person, but with a plain black insert on the crown with no distinguishing Horde or Host markings embroidered into it. It was noted Lady Olga and Bolshie Irena were wearing the white-cross-over black heraldry of what Pyotr Simenovich recognised as the Vulga Horde, a distant and feared Cossack host from a faraway river.

"They travelled a bit, then." Pyotr said, knowingly. "Our local lads are Ron Cossacks, of course. Different Horde colours."

They studied the redhead again: pretty girl, trying to blend in but not quite fitting, stood out like a carrot in a field of good honest beets. Probably foreign of some kind, but definitely _ved'ma_. The others were Rus. Definitely. Young girls, _devyushkii_ in late teens or early twenties. Rus faces, Rus clothing, definitely Rus figures. The little dark one there, pleasingly wide in the hips, big round face, likely to make some lucky fellow a good child-bearing wife. But all toting Cossack sabres at the left hip. Apart from that one there, older than the rest, got a sabre on _each_ hip…

"Brung a Wizard with them, too."

" _Da_. But Lady Olga's just said to him, fall back, stand over there. Take the children."

Olga Romanoff ignored the gathered peasantry, acknowledging they were here for the same reason she was. She made the Witch bow to the old lady. The delegation of Witches with her bowed too.

The old lady in the rocking chair studied them. She fitted the definition of crone: hooked nose, bright intelligent eyes, yellowed skin stretched tightly over old bones. She nodded back.

"We received the message, Natalia Svetlanavichniya. Of course we should be present."

The old witch nodded.

" _Horoscho._ Now aren't you going to introduce me to people? Oh, and your husband over there and the kiddies. Bring me the kiddies, Olga Anastacia. I can show them the oven…."

There was a brief pause. The old witch cackled.

" _Joke_ , Olga Anastacia! Can't an old lady about to die make a joke on the way out? Besides, that _devuschka_ of yours has got magic. Can feel it from here. That's interesting. Not much of interest goes on when you're a hundred and three."

Vodka and hospitality had been provided, and a Going-Away party had commenced. Olga's husband Eddie had been invited to join them, and their twin children had been told to Be Good and Respectful. Olga had winced when the twins had indeed been Shown The Oven, a far larger thing than it needed to be. The old witch had said it had been there when she took over from the previous _ved'ma_ , and told the children the usual heavily embroidered horror story. Valla had dutifully shrieked at the hair-raising bit about an old Witch who _really liked_ little girls, ideally roasted for three hours at two hundred degrees.

"Little boys, tougher meat. I reckon five hours to tenderise it."

Vassily had stuck his chin out, belligerently.

"That is so?" he had demanded. He glared up at the old witch, five years old and without fear. He placed a hand on the hilt of the wooden practice _shaksha_ he'd been given by the Vulga Cossacks, their acceptance of him as one of the Horde.

Then, as his father winced and his mother did the thing with the palm of her hand and her forehead, Vassily had opened the doors of the big, old, and cold oven, and climbed inside…

"Do your worst, old _ved'ma_!" he shouted, his voice echoing from inside the oven.

Natalie cackled softly.

"He ain't dumb, Olga. He figured it out. Take _ages_ to heat it up from stone cold, and anyway, notice how he's used his sword to wedge the door open so I can't close it on him? That's a good lad you got there. Bravery _and_ brains, a rare thing to see together. When he takes over from his grandfather, reckon this place has got a good Grand Duke. Better one, too! Your little girl shrieked so as to be polite and make an old lady feel better, but I reckon she saw through it too. You're doing well with them two."

There had been another round of vodkas. The foreign witch with the really vivid red hair had asked, in halting and fractured Rus, about, err, this cottage-belongs-Witch,,, err, feet of ducks? Can walk? Stories you hear. Errr."

The other witches had laughed at this. One of the younger girls, who had trained with her in faraway Lancre, did a bit of explaining in the outlandish Morporkian tongue, the one Natalia had picked up a few phrases of, but never really bothered to learn.

Natalia cackled again.

" _Nie_ , Rebecka Yohannavichniya! Think about it. I experimented, _da_ , but it worries people. And you learn. Crockery rattles. Falls off shelf. No suspension. Shakes a lot. And bottom of _isba_ not waterproof. Ducks wish to swim. Gets wet under feet. Not good idea."

"Takes ages to dry out. Too much aggravation." Olga translated.

"Ah. Thank you." Rebecka Smith-Rhodes said, after a few moments of reflection.

"Never believe all you hear, _devyushka_." Olga said, kindly. She added, in Rus, "Not from round here. She's in the Pegasus Service now. We're taking her on trips like this to broaden her out a bit."

Hoofbeats were heard. Lots of hoofbeats. Growing closer.

Olga nodded to the older Witch, the one who wore the two sabres.

"On cue. Speak to them, Xenia Galena?"

The witch in the long flowing black coat nodded, and slipped out.

The Cossack horde, well, more of a sub-Horde, really, a Horde-ette, a _sotnia_ of men in the service of Grand Duke Nikolas Romanoff, rode forwards, cracking their whips in the air on general principles, half-heartedly intending to use them on the backs of any _kulak_ unintelligent enough to get out of the way quickly, let their voices rise in song as they rode. The coach they escorted rode in their wake.

Then the song died as the _sotnia_ came to an abrupt halt, the sub-gallop fading to a canter and then an abrupt stop. There was the screeching sound of coach brakes being applied. Horsemen piled up in confusion.

The hetman of the Cossacks cantered forward a little way, as a lone singing voice, who hadn't caught up with current reality, carried on the song, then realised he was on his own and let his voice falter into confused silence.

The Hetman looked down at a slender dark-haired woman dressed in black, who stood in their path, hands nonchalantly in her pockets. He read the heraldry on the crown of her fur cap, white cord edged in gold on a red ground. It was the only splash of colour about her. He also took in not one long Cossack sabre, but two. So far they were still sheathed.

He swallowed nervously and dismounted. He bowed, very respectfully.

" _Shamanskaya_. What is your wish? How may we assist?" he asked.

Xenia Galena, _ved'ma_ and _shamanskaya_ to the Vulga Horde, looked up at him. She took her time in replying.

"That you, and the one you escort, approach this place with respect and reverence." she said.

"It will be as you wish, shamanskaya."

" _Horoscho."_

"Don't have too much in the way of Family." the old Witch said. "And witches are spread a bit thin in these parts. Not many to see me go, but I'm glad my pupils came back this last time. Brung a few promising girls with them. I'm pleased."

"How could we not?" Irena Politek asked. "You taught us, Natalia. We should be here to see you off."

" _Da._ And my people are out there. To see me off. And those bloody Cossacks."

She grinned up. "There's a book on the shelf there. More notes, really. About how to make up the ointments for saddle-sores. Whichever girl takes over here needs to know that. A good ointment for saddle-sores gets you a long way with Cossacks."

Xenia Galena grinned, her primary task having been completed. The Cossacks were waiting outside, reverentially, not making noise or throwing their weight around. _And_ the people they'd escorted, who were tactfully not asking entrance to the isba. Or, worse, demanding it.

"But _you_ knows that, young woman." Natalia said.

"Da, _babayuga_. That, and care of horses." Xenia agreed.

Natalia grinned. She looked up at her former pupils.

"Olga, Irena. It's all yours to dispose of as you both see fit. There's one thing. Sent it on its own way to Ankh-Morpork. It'll find you."

Olga and Irena looked at each other. Mystery. Their old teacher had a "You're both bright. You'll figure it out" look on her face. One last lesson.

"Just get a good girl in place. I know you will. Don't need to be here to approve of your choice. "

Shortly after that, an old witch died. **(1)** Present at her bedside, as non-Witches have to be, were the Cossack Hetman, the head peasant of the village, and Grand Duke Nikolas himself. Irena thought this a capsule of her people's society: the Peasant, the Nobility, the Cossack, and the Witch, who stands apart.

"Hmmph. What happens next?" Nikolas Romanoff asked, one arm around each of his grandchildren.

The Village Headman touched his cap respectfully. "There must be a _ved'ma_ , esteemed Ladies." he said. "The people need to know who is to be their _ved'ma_."

The Hetman shuffled uneasily. He said nothing, but felt a stirring of discomfort from those bloody saddle-sores. _Somebody_ had to be there to make the ointment…

"Leave it to us." Olga said, knowing in this place, where it had all began for her, she was senior Witch.

Her father nodded. He looked uncertain for a moment. There were limits to the power of an otherwise autocratic Grand Duke in a feudal society. One of those limits was stretched out, cooling, on the bed.

"Damn fine woman, Natalia." he said. "Had our differences, of course. But good at what she did. Hard to replace."

"Every Witch is." Olga remarked. She nodded to Irena. The two of them respectfully covered the body in the bed. The next stages were for them to do, and only them. They'd been her pupils.

Nikolas stood back, respectfully. After a while he left the isba, without being asked, and everybody but Olga and Irena left with him.

Later there was a burial, and a solemn wake. With vodka. The young Lancre-trained witch Natasha Vasilisa, one of those who had performed the sabre dance at the Witch Trials, was to take the steading. It had been Decided.

 _ **The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork. A week or so later.**_

"Well, that's over." Captain Olga Romanoff said, settling behind the commanding officer's desk. Here, she commanded the City Watch Air Police and directed the Pegasus Service. It was a busy working life. With, she admitted, unparelleled opportunities to travel and see the world. And all she'd wanted to do was to be a working Witch with a special interest in flight and flight technomancy. Everything else, since her first exposure to broomsticks and the thought "I really, really, want to do this!" had just _happened_.

"Indeed." Lieutenant Irena Politek agreed. Her life had taken pretty much the same vector; a Witch with a special interest in flight. "And how is the Baroness this morning?"

Olga glared at her old friend. A surprising outcome of her recent visit Home had been that her husband Eddie had been subjected to the usual terrifying intimidation from his father-in-law; a man who had been utterly opposed to his daughter marrying not just a commoner, but a middle-class tradesman to boot, a bloody Wizard. That was usual. Grand Duke Nikolas, possibly prompted by the Grand Duchess, had softened slightly on the arrival of twin grandchildren. Olga suspected Lady Sybil Ramkin had been having quiet words in the backgtound to Smooth Things Over, Duchess to Grand Duke, social peers working out a little solution. But there was no denying Nikolas adored his grandchildren and because of that had been inclined to cut a little slack to the damn bloody jumped-up damnable wizard.

Eddie had been presented with an ornate scroll signed by all four Grand Dukes, her father and his three brothers, normally bitter rivals with an eye on the grand prize, the dormant title of Tsar Of All The Ruskiya. If anything could unite any three of them, it was to prevent the fourth becoming Tsar. It was a long-running stalemate.

But they'd agreed on this. As a face-saving thing, the low-born husband of the putative Grand Duchess Olga and father of a future Grand Duke was hereby elevated, by common consent of the Council of Grand Dukes, to the title of Baron de Cocquamainie. As you could not have a Grand Duke with a commoner father. The idea was unthinkable. And he clearly had to be one social level below his wife.

Which made Olga into a Baroness by marriage. _Govno, another bloody title._ What also irked was that after hearing of Eddie's social elevation, people in and around the Air Station were now beginning to refer to Olga, in a covert way, as "The Red Baroness". It felt right, she admitted with reluctance, even if it made her wince.

Eddie, a Rimwards Howondalandian and one born into a Republic, had also winced. A lot.

"The Baroness is fine, thank you for asking. But here she is a Captain. Let us focus on the day, if you please?"

They discussed Watch needs for Air Policewomen for the day and made deployment plans. The Service currently mustered seventeen Pegasus pilots, another fifteen full and Special Air Policewomen, two or three Mokos **(2)** who piloted the flying carpets, and twenty-five or so Feegle and Gnomes, either Navigators for the Pegasus Service or who flew the birds of prey used for additional patrol vehicles. It was a formidable force. Lord Vetinari also intended them to be a more _martial_ Air Force, if called upon, in the event of any regrettable international misunderstandings with a country like Klatch, and they also kept a vigilant eye open for any incursions by Elves. The pilots were taught more specific air-combat skills in the event of need. Vetinari made sure the Klatchians knew all about this, and Olga was perfectly aware at least one of the three Mokos in the Service reported back, frequently, to a handler at the Klatchian Embassy. Olga tolerated this, reasoning it was handy to know who the spies were, and ensured they didn't get any of the _really_ important stuff that needed to be kept secret. Besides, the rare flying carpets, hard to obtain, were useful and needed specialist care. You couldn't use just any old carpet shampoo, for one thing.

The morning mail arrived, delivered by a dogsbody Watchman assigned to the mail room. Routine stuff. Apart from the big square parcel which had probably caused Davey in the Post Office's Dead Letter Room a few headaches; addressed in Cyrillic script written in the crabbed hand of an old lady un-used to writing things down, next to which somebody had added a transliteration into Morporkian characters as if they'd done it letter-by-letter out of a dictionary.

Amazingly, it had arrived it its intended recipient. Along with the sticker saying "insufficient postage paid" and an advisory warning label to say "suspected magical device in transit" with a warning that this contravened Post Office regulations and an additional fine applied.

Olga sighed. There'd sooner or later be a memo from Inspector Pessimal to say that he'd allowed it this time, and paid the penalty fees from Petty Cash, so could Captain Romanoff please make up the $AM 1.35 owing at her earliest convenience…

Olga couldn't locate a letter opener. Irena improvised, drawing her sabre and using this, carefully, to slice through the layers of wrapping paper.

Inside was a box.

And inside the box was a perfectly ordinary mortar and pestle, separately wrapped, with a letter.

The letter was from Natalia.

 _If you are reading this, devyushka, then you will know I am dead. I bequeath this gift to you and to Irena, my first pupils in Witchcraft, that you might both work out its Secrets…_

Irena thoughtfully put the pestle into the mortar and rattled it around, as if grinding herbs. Every pupil witch got to know this at the hands of her tutor, a woman usually pleased to have somebody to delegate the donkey work to.

 _I charge ye both not to touch the mortar with the pestle unless you have need. Keep them separate at all times…_

" _Slava bogu!"_ Irena shouted, in surprise.

"Irena? I'd take the pestle out of the mortar, if I were you…" Olga said, with forced and studied calm.

The mortar shrank down again to its normal kitchen-utensil size. It had suddenly swelled to the size of a large bucket on contact with the pestle. And had still been growing.

Irena studied the mortar in one hand and the pestle in the other. She had a look of deep suspicion on her face. Olga stood up and pushed her chair back.

"I think we had better take this thing outside, don't you?" she said.

The flat roof of the Air Station was populated by people going about their usual morning tasks. A Pegasus flight was saddling up; Olga recognised Hanna von Strafenburg and Rebecka Smith-Rhodes , who would shortly be setting out for the Palace to receive mail and briefings for the Hubward States run. The noise of hammering, drilling and Dwarfish singing from the technomancy sheds, where broomsticks and other flight-related equipment was maintained. Squawking from the aviaries punctuated by Feegle threats of "see me, ye gannet ye, nae diving for fish wi' _me_ on ye back, ye ken?" **(3)**

"Thought they were fulmars." Irena remarked. "Or cormorants." She set the mortar down carefully on the edge of the landing circle, put the pestle inside it, then stepped back very smartly. Heads turned to watch as the mortar swelled to the size of a large armchair. The pestle inside grew correspondingly in size. It settled and rattled slightly; as it tilted, the mortar rose off the ground, hovered, and leaned to one side.

"Olga. Look." Irena said.

Olga scowled.

"Oh. One of _those_." she said.

"I've heard of them. Looks bloody dangerous to me."

" _Da."_ Olga agreed. She beckoned a passing Dwarf ground technomancer. "You. Get me a parachute. Thank you."

"Olga. You're not intending to _fly_ in it, are you?" Irena asked.

Sergeant Hanna von Strafenburg was looking hopeful. She had beckoned her wing-mate Rebecka Smith-Rhodes to halt a moment, and had cantered her Pegasus over to take a closer look. Olga grinned up at her. She knew Hanna usually claimed test-pilot rights on any new and unproven flight technomancy. Hanna had a reputation for being methodically crazy like this.

"Not _this_ one, Hanna." Olga said. "For one thing, you're due at the Palace for a flight-briefing. You've got a rookie pilot to train in. And besides. This is _my_ people's magical cultural heritage. So _I_ get to fly it. It's expected."

Olga got into the offered parachute. She tightened the straps and checked the ripcord was where her right hand expected it to be. Then she contemplated how the Hells you got into a very large mortar-and-pestle to fly it.

"Looks odd, with your knees pulled up to your chin like that." Irena said. "And cramped."

"Hmmph." Olga said. She experimentally moved the pestle in front of her. She reminded herself she wasn't single. She had a husband and two children. She shrugged. She had an untried and un-tested flying Technomantic Device which she'd have to learn to fly as she went along. No operating manual. _I'm well over thirty and I'm wearing a parachute. Which I did not pack myself so I will have to take on trust that it works. But if I do this thing properly, I will not need to use the parachute. Olga Anastacia, do you want to live forever? And flying a desk is so boring…_

"Irena, you are in charge till I return."

Olga angled the pestle forwards. There was a dopplering yell as the mortar got airborne. It sounded one-part surprise and two-parts exultation. Irena uncovered her eyes and watched the large rounded cup-like thing as it made an unsteady parabola into the sky above Ankh-Morpork.

" _If_ you return." Irena Politek said, softly. She watched the wavering dot dwindle into the distance over the City, and shook her head.

 _ **Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork.**_

The group of wizards gathered on a flat rooftop and looked up at the shattered ruins. They contemplated the wreck in silence.

"So the balls exploded, Stibbons." the Arch-Chancellor remarked.

"Yes, sir." Ponder Stibbons replied. "There was a massive unscheduled surge of magic down below somewhere…"

"In yer H.E.M." Ridcully said, flatly. "And the device designed, at great cost, to channel and vent the magic harmlessly - gave in. And exploded."

"The repair costs are estimated at six thousand dollars." said the Bursar. Ponder winced again. Just his luck that the Bursar was on the median line of his personal sine curve and was therefore being horribly efficient.

The fourth Wizard present patted Ponder's shoulder with fellow-feeling. Doctor Edouard de Kockamaainje was an exchange Wizard from Witwatersrand University in Rimwards Howondaland. His working week meant following where his wife went; fortunately for him, this was not too difficult at all. He tended to divide his week between two countries and two Universities; his family had homes in both countries. It could get confusing.

"I got this from Direktor van Rijnswaand." **(4)** he said, sympathetically. "When the experimental devices for monitoring the migration petterns of Hermit Elephents on the veldt got trempled on. Or, efter we tried to conceal them in vegetation ettrective to elephents, they were eaten. Fifteen thousand rand, turned into elephent kak."

Two younger research Wizards shared a look of brotherly empathy in the face of narrow-minded seniors who deplored the cost of advancing the frontiers of magical knowledge. Especially the fact they unjustly got blamed when costly devices went up bang, or got trampled on, or were inadvertently eaten by, large pachydermous animals.

Ridcully considered the wreckage of the flyball governor. The central shaft was still there, and the collars that had allowed the big brass balls to fly and spin and harmlessly vent surplus magic. The only problem was that too much surplus magic had been generated, all at once. The city had been treated to a short sharp shower of shrapnel and cogwheels. Vetinari had been sarcastic and said it was a mercy it had happened at three in the morning during a thunderstorm.

Ridcully shook his head.

"Bet you're sorry you joined us, lad." he said to Eddie. "Or dare I say, _Baron_?"

Eddie winced. Ridcully patted his shoulder. "If it helps, lad, Vetinari made me a Lord and young Stibbons here into a Knight. Last Hogswatch honours list."

"It is only velid in the Four Duchies," Eddie said. He really wasn't sure how this would play out at home. His country was a Republic. And his in-laws scared the hells out of him. Ridcully nodded.

"Random discharge of magic. A sudden unexpected spike in the magical flux. Caused the regulating device to explode. Hmmph."

He was about to say more, then the apparition passed by. The woman inside the Thing waved at them and shouted

"Eddie! Don't forget to pick the kids up from school…."

There was silence among the Wizards as the improbable Thing receded into the distance and gained height again.

Ridcully noted that the wreck of the Regulator had picked up and one broken arm was rapidly orbiting the central spindle. It was an otherwise windless day.

"Doctor de Kockamaainje? Did I just witness yer wife flying past, sitting very uncomfortably in what looks like an over-large mixin' bowl?"

"I wish I could say "no", sir…"

Ridcully sighed.

"Random surges in the magical flux." he repeated. The arm of the rapidly rotating spindle obligingly creaked and fell off. He looked at Ponder. "Get it fixed, lad. I'll approve the bills. Where's the Bursar… oh, no. Where are the dried frog pills?"

"We're going to have to get him to land first, sir…"

Olga was getting the hang of it by now. _Tilt pestle right – left bank. Tilt it left – right bank. Raise it slightly up the inner wall of the mortar, taking care to keep it in contact at all times – climb. Pull it down – descend._ She wasn't sure what would happen if she tried to loop-the-loop. The thing was stable in level flight, but it felt as aerodynamic as a housebrick. She sensed looping or inverting it would be terribly unwise. Things might fall out. Like the pilot, or more importantly, the control pestle. Lose that, and she'd be in a rapidly shrinking kitchen utensil with the magic gone. Reflexively, she checked her parachute was still on. She also applied the long-ago-learnt reflex to watch the sky behind her. Elves could pop into Disc space at any moment and they liked to get behind you and stalk. She loosened the sabre in its scabbard, her only weapon, and made sure she could draw it if this was needed.

Olga looked over her shoulder and frowned. This was air. Not water. But the passage of the bowl was leaving a very clear trail behind her, like the eddies and wake left by a ship. Another mystery. She flew on. _Another couple of circuits around the City, then land at the Air Station…_ she frowned again. How did you safely land a large mixing bowl? There wasn't a manual for it and nobody had flown such an improbable aircraft before. And generally you only ever got one go at getting it right…

Below her, Nick Highpriest huddled into his hooded and fur-lined coat and sighed deeply. Being a member of AMUFORA wasn't any fun at all. People in this town tended to treat you as if you were weird, or something. However patiently, rationally, or logically he tried to make the case for the Discworld having been visited by spacecraft from other worlds, however painstakingly he tried to explain the self-evident Truth, people shied away from him. And what made it difficult was that people tried to explain away perfectly good UFO sightings as "don't be daft, that were a witch on a broomstick!" or "Look, lad, that was the Bursar from the University. He gets these funny turns now and again where he thinks he can fly." Or "That's just Joe-Malik-Le-Tahksi, nice lad for a bloody Klatchian, picking up a fare. He ain't abducting nobody and you'd better be careful with all that stuff about _probing,_ Gods know where you get that funny idea from _._ "

After a while his eyes drifted off the face of the person he was patiently explaining things to, and settled on a point just behind their left shoulder. He knew this at least wasn't good communication and tried to correct for this. The Ankh-Morpork Unidentified Flying Object Research Association knew this was a failing, at least.

He sighed again. There hadn't been a decent, inexplicable, strange thing in the sky for some time now. Okay, there were a bunch of mad Witches at the City Watch who flew all manner of things. But, he argued, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that the aliens could be putting out some sort of technomantic mind-field to deceive you into thinking you were only seeing a Witch on a broomstick, that this was an illusion spell masking the underlying reality being one of the Greys on a high-technomantic anti-gravity device. You couldn't rule it out, could you? Those white horses with wings, for instance. You see them flying up and then they suddenly disappear. They could be getting beamed back to the Mothership, right?

He wondered about dropping in at Sham Harga's for a nasty-but-cheap coffee.

And then he saw It. His first genuine UFO for a long time. This was it, the real deal. Like a rounded sphere, viewed from underneath. Fingers trembling with excitement, he fumbled for a pocket iconograph as it banked and he saw the pilot was a woman, or apparently so, in shining silver that gleamed in the weak winter sun. She appeared to have long brown-red hair and she was wearing some sort of outlandish alien helmet… her knees were drawn up and she was manipulating some sort of control rod that gleamed as white as the material of the spacecraft… he lifted the iconograph and sighted.

"Forget it, friend." said the demon from inside. "Right out of ink and almost out of paper. Told you I needed a refill, did'n'I?" **(5)**

He howled with frustration as the woman in the spacecraft gave him a friendly wave. Then flew on, down in the direction of the Isle of Gods. The spacecraft left a visible rippling wake in its trail. After a while this too faded and left no trace.

 _One of those left-ear people who hang around the Air Station convinced we're up to no good,_ Olga thought. _Recognise him. Had to caution a couple of the girls who have got warped senses of humour from putting out those stories about it being Area Fifty-Seven, or something, where Vetinari sanctions fiendish experiments which are, naturally, seriously hushed up afterwards… still. At least our security is a lot better these days, after that Assassin got in_ **(6).** _We were getting complacent… but our having really tight security is also proof we're up to bad things. We would not need such heavy security if we were not up to no good._

She put Nick Highpriest out of her mind. She now had to land the bloody thing. Safely. And it involved being at a height where a parachute would be of no use whatsoever, if she fouled it up. Olga focused and gained height again. She banked a lazy circuit round the city, and focused on the approach to the Air Station. A lot of people were gathering down there. She winced, realising if the Squadron Commander pancaked a landing in front of everyone, it was going to look _embarrassing_ , at the very least.

The omniscope communicator in her top pocket buzzed. She pulled it out one-handed.

 _Ground control calling Syren… ground control calling Syren…_

"Syren here. Making approach to land. Over."

 _Syren, do you require assistance? You are clear to land. All other activities suspended. Over._

"Syren responding. Unfamiliar air vehicle, landing procedure unclear, operational parameters not known. Should be able to get this thing down. Over."

There was a burst of noise from the other end of the line. And a new voice. Exasperated.

 _Olga, everything comes down and lands. Eventually. The trick is for it to land, not crash! Can you land that thing safely?_

"Thank you for your concern, Irena. I believe I can land this thing. Just clear the deck, could you? Just in case? Over."

She saw the ground control Dwarf, Mig Oyeff, probably, go into the circle with the coloured ping-pong bats and perform the usual complicated ballet. Nobody knew why this happened or what it was actually _for_. It just seemed right. And aviators developed their rituals, over time.

Olga focused on losing height and speed in the usual safely measured increments. Observers saw a large white bowl skipping over the air like a stone skimmed over water, that kissed the surface of the air station landing circle, bouncing gently till it skidded to a halt within a few feet of falling over the far rooftop. Olga exhaled, gathered herself, and lifted the pestle away from the mortar. She had the sense to swing her legs up and over as the mixing bowl, and the pestle in her right hand rapidly shrank to normal kitchen utensil size.

Irena ran to her.

"Ye Gods, you made a pig's ear of that, Olga Romanoff!" she shouted. "You nearly bloody well rolled over the opposite edge!"

Olga grinned.

" _Da_. But I didn't. And you know what they say? A good landing is one you can walk away from."

She picked up the bowl.

"If you're in no hurry to try it out yourself, we can find space for this in the _special_ hangar." Olga said. "Next to the things in the iron box which we do not talk about very much **. (7)** Add a note. _Store mortar and pestle separately and never let them touch_. Important."

Olga walked through a circle of admiring Air Service pilots and groundcrew, the metal of her Watch-issue breast and backplate gleaming metallic silver in the weak winter sun. She took off her flying helmet. She had lived to fly another day and would be seeing Eddie and the kids tonight. If he remembered to pick them up from school, that was.

After a while Olga looked back over her shoulder as another flyer came in to land. Irena raised an eyebrow.

"I kind of picked him up. Wasn't able to shake him off. Can you get somebody to give him a cup of hot sweet tea and a dried frog pill or two? There are some in the First Aid box. Oh, and clacks the University to say he followed me here, and we'll keep him safe for them to collect? _Spassibo_."

She beckoned the Bursar of Unseen University to come with them. He trustingly followed. Just another day at the air Station...

* * *

 **(1)** DEATH always found these to be challenging gigs. A room full of witches, all aware of His presence, all of whom he'd met before, who were all expecting him to do right by the deceased. And if one of them was a _shamanskaya_ who was making it clear from her demeanour that He wasn't even in the Top Ten Interesting Things she'd encountered in the worlds beyond.. thought of writing this bit, but it would have digressed for too long.

 **(2)** MOKO; Morporkian of Klatchian Origin. Police shorthand. Ankh-Morpork had its immigrant Klatchian community, many of whom flew magic carpets as a taxi-for-hire service.

 **(3)** Maritime patrols were a relatively new thing, keeping a watch over the seaborne approaches to the city. The Flight-Feegle were experimenting with seabirds of various sorts to find the right ones for patrol.

 **(4)** it was a matter of interest that everywhere in the world (outside the central continent) where there was a college of wizardry, the Arch-Chancellor, the Director or the Principal Head of Studies was called "Rincewind", or a variation of a theme. Fourecks, Aceria and the Foggy Islands all had senior wizards with an oddly familiar name. Rimwards Howondaland was no exceltion.

 **(5)** This is an iron law of Forteana. Cameras inexplicably fail to take images. Recording devices always fritz. To some minds, this in itself is sure proof of the Paranormal.

 **(6)** The Assassin had been on a mission. It involved a Man in Black daring terrible perils to bring chocolate to his girlfriend. As some things are understood by narrative causality, he had not been pursued too strenuously - everybody knows it's all because the lady loves Higgs and Meakin's finest Assorted Milk Chocolate Platter - but Olga had seriously reviewed base security afterwards.

 **(7)** Elven yarrow stalks, captured enemy technomancy which needed special handling. So far the flight technomancers hadn't been able to reverse-biothaumically-engineer how they operated. Hanna von Strafenburg, naturally, had tried to fly one. Even she had said "once is enough" afterwards.

 **Notes Dump:-**

Background notes, from an FB discussion on the nature of Witchcraft in Russia….

Reading up on Russian witchcraft traditions and wondering if it's not impossible to put out a Hogswatch short. Ideas are multiplying. thinking of my Discworld Russian witches and their unique background in the Craft... a Hogswatch present that appears on the desk of City Watch Air Police and Pegasus Service commander, Captain Olga Romanoff. (backstory: after a few adventures, Olga and her friend Irena complete their training as Witches in Lancre and bring something new and exotic to Lancre witching. After Sam and Sybil pass through Lancre on their way back from Überwald (end of _**The Fifth Elephant**_ : they take the long way home and see a few sights: Lancre is on their journey) . Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax suggest, in as many words, if his Air Watch consists only of a couple of Feegle on flying birds, he might want to consider a couple of young witches we got from forn parts, buggers for flight and flying. Vimes reconsiders - he knows he said "no bloody magic users in the Watch", but by now he realises Witches have their heads screwed on better than Wizards. And from its beginnings in two Witches, the Air Police expands and in a later story acquires Pegasi - flying horses - after his Gorgon constable gets a nosebleed. Scroll forwards by a decade or two, and we have the expanded Air Watch.)

the Air Watch is composed of witches of all nationalities with a passion for flight, backed by ground-crew Dwarfish technomancers who have ideas to push the frontiers of flight, some of which are less crazy than the others. Olga has risen to Captain, or perhaps Wing-Commander. But she realises her bargain with flight is like the Lancre blacksmith's bargain with shoeing - if a flying Device is brought to her then she has to make it fly, however weird or unlikely it seems. And one day, the parcel containing the mortar and pestle arrives on her desk... with Far Überwaldean stamps and address on it.


	2. Getting some heavy lift

_**The Price of Flight – part two**_

 _ **Well, I never thought I'd be writing a second part to this story so soon or indeed at all… but a short I wrote for the Facebook site took on a life of its own and sort of grew, with input from others. This has to be written. Thanks to the Ankh-Morpork Times – News Of The Disc page. This is an expanded and rewritten intro to the story, previously published on another fic: stick with it, it gets new and original later on. As always, to be revisited and revied and tweaked as is necessary. This is V0.4**_

The group of Watchmen conferred together in the street outside the tenement building off Pewter Street. Mickle Well was a small urban square, or in this case a small urban pentagon, just off the main drag. The public well in the cleared space had been here for centuries, maybe even a millennium. The water source had gathered human habitation to it, first a hamlet, then maybe a village, and as the village became a town and then a city, the buildings around the well had grown and evolved. On all five sides around the public well and waterpumps, there were towering tenements in grey stone stained black from years of coal and wood smoke. These rose to five or six stories tall.

Sam Vimes restrained a shudder. While this was his Ankh-Morpork still, it was on the fringes of The Shades. All those windows felt like eyes, watching him. Stationary Watchmen at ground level under all those windows. Lots of places from which to deposit things, from a greater or lesser height, on Watchmen. Best not to linger.

He turned his mind to the job that was in front of him. From somewhere above came a booming, trumpeting, call. It echoed in the claustrophobic space. It was somehow _wrong_ for Ankh-Morpork.

"Carrot? How the Hell do we sort THIS one out?" he demanded. His deputy paused before answering.

"This clearly contravenes the Domestic Pets Act of 1698, sir. I'll have a word with the Zoo, shall I? Ask if we can borrow a few keepers to assist?"

Vimes breathed a deep resigned sigh.

"Good idea, Carrot. ask if they can look after the impounded animal for us? And book the tenant for being bloody stupid, too?"

Vimes turned towards the circle of local residents who were gathered nearby. Several women, typical Ankh-Morpork housewives, had folded their arms and were glaring meaningfully.

"What are you going to do about _this_ , Mr Vimes?"

"Yeah, health hazard! And the _smell_ …"

The trumpeting noise boomed again.

Vimes was relieved when one of his Specials turned up. He'd asked for her. She'd expressed a willingness to come back to the Watch after temporarily handing in her badge, so as to focus on her family. Vimes has been certain she would return. Sybil had said she would. She didn't have the personality for being an everyday working mother. She would want _more_ than that, Sybil had said. Just wait and see, Sam.

And this sort of thing was her speciality.

"Special Detective-Konstabel Smith-Rhodes reporting for duty, sir." she said, saluting him. Vimes let an appreciative smile cross his face. It was the first time he'd heard those words in a long time. He admitted he'd missed that.

"Glad to have you back, Johanna." he said, sincerely. They shook hands. Then he briefed her. She nodded.

"Excuse me, sir." she said. She looked round and assessed the five interconnected tenement blocks. Her eyes followed a visible trail on the flagstones and cobbles that seemed _differently dirty_.

"I believe I cen tell which building."

The trumpeting roar echoed again. Johanna raised an eyebrow.

" _Jislaaik!"_ she said. "End on the third floor, you say?"

Vimes nodded, grimly.

"Beats me how the hells he got it up there." Vimes remarked. "And how you are going to get it down again."

Johanna considered this.

"This species hes _knees_ , Mr Vimes." she said. "On all four legs. It is the only non-primate creature with knees. This is good for things like, for instance, climbing stairs."

She considered the tenement.

"Is there a bakers' shop nearby to here?" she asked.

He looked at Johanna Smith-Rhodes. Damn, the woman was from Howondaland. She'd been brought up on the felt, or veldt, or whatever they called it in their language, the one that sounded like somebody chewing bricks and spitting gravel. She knew her stuff concerning animals.

Vimes relayed her request to a Watchman, who saluted and went to fulfil her order.

"Get them to do me a BLT?" Vimes added. "Capital letter B, small "l" and a smaller "t". Thanks.

She nodded at Vimes.

"The first thing we need to do justnow is to retrieve this enimel from a third floor epertment. I have a plen for thet too."

A little later, she confidently set off up the stairs, the bag of buns slung nonchalantly over one shoulder, she looked back and grinned at Vimes. "Ag, it could be worse." she remarked. "It could be en Osibisi. I will tell you ebout thet sort of elefent later.. _Eish_. Never stend directly underneath an Osibisi. **(1)** "

Vimes and Carrot waited in the dingy entrance hall to the tenement as she ascended out of sight. They took the opportunity to eat their evening meal; Vimes' B(l.t.) and Carrot's RLT. Some time later there was thunderous crashing from above. The whole building shook.

"Tell me she's not letting any bloody bombs off up there, Carrot." Vimes said. His deputy shook his head.

"No, sir. She says it's cruel to use them on animals."

Vimes grunted.

"Okay. Did we send any trolls up to help?"

"No, sir. She claims she can do this alone."

There was a distant trumpeting noise. This was followed by the creaking of an abused staircase. This grew louder and louder. Heavy footfalls were heard. Then Johanna backed into view, laying the last of a trail of buns on the staircase. Vimes blinked as a rather large elephant came into view, following the food the thoughtful human was kindly providing. The stairs underneath and the wall to one side was visibly buckling under its weight. Vimes winced again, thinking of what Fred Colon and Wee Mad Arthur had once described to him, of a golem discovering stairs were its weak point. He braced for the crash. The stairs audibly creaked.

"How the Hell did she get it to turn round and come down the stairs front first?" Vimes demanded, of nobody in particular.

Johanna grinned.

" Knees. Remember? A donkey up a minaret hes no knees. Elefents are _easier_. Hermit elefent. Small third-floor flet." she said. "But still, not much room to turn. Once I get this fellow out, Mr Vimes, you might wish to evacuate the building? One of the walls thet collapsed was load-bearing."

Johanna was coaxing the elephant to the street door. It followed her trustingly. Vimes groaned.

"Get everybody out, Carrot. Have people knock on doors."

He paused. A shard of abused plaster fell from a wall. Stone creaked.

"And it might be a good idea to talk to a builder. One who does demolitions, if necessary."

Later, he took Johanna's report. Her first active Watch duty in years.

"How do you know, Commander," she said, looking seriously at him, "thet this is not en isolated case. Perheps somebody imported Hermit Elefant babies es pets, end when they got too big to be kept comfortably, they were turned loose, end heve edepted to Enkh-Morpork city life. Just es you heve urban foxes, you now, perheps, hev a viable colony of urban hermit elefents. In which case, we need to make a plen."

Vimes tried not to let his face show any sort of dismay.

"Johanna, Vetinari said he wanted to be kept informed. You don't mind attending the Palace with me?"

 _ **The Widdershins Ocean, travelling out towards Fourecks:-**_

Captain Olga Romanoff felt the usual shock of dislocation as her Pegasus popped out of Feegle Space into the intense blue of the tropical ocean. She felt the heat immediately along with the glare of the sun. This was doubly disconcerting as she had left Ankh-Morpork some minutes earlier in a cold and clammy pre-dawn morning.

She shrugged, fatalistically. This was normal for the Pegasus Service. She'd been doing this for the best part of eighteen years, after all. She should be used to this by now.

Olga put the prickly heat and sudden sweatiness of the transition to one side. Nothing to be done about that. She banked her Pegasus, searching the expanse of ocean ten thousand feet below her, seeking to get a fix as to direction. That there was nothing down there but ocean didn't worry her too much. Her navigator would have brought her to the right place. She just had to look. Besides, she'd done the Fourecks and Foggy Islands route before. Nothing to it, really. Fourecks should be over _there_ , just the other side of the horizon.

"Steer ten points starboard, Mistress." her navigator said, from his perch in the mane.

Olga acknowledged and made the course correction. She wasn't going to Fourecks today. This was a special run, to a destination she'd never visited before. Wee Mad Arthur, her navigator, had taken pains to get the course _absolutely_ correct. She appreciated this. There was a lot of water down there. Nowhere to land if you got lost.

"Straight ahead, Mistress."

Olga acknowledged. She noted what looked like a pinprick on the horizon, a discontinuity on the otherwise flat edge of the great sea. It got larger as the steady beat of the wings took them nearer. She turned over the briefing in her mind. Vetinari had been very specific. Professor Ponder Stibbons, who had been here before, had advised. She was glad of that. It wasn't every day you got to talk to a God. The idea didn't intimidate Olga. She was a Witch, for one thing. Being a Witch meant you made sure other people realised this early on in the conversation, and behaved accordingly. Even if they were Gods.

The discontinuity on the horizon began to resolve itself. It started to look like the sort of island that was about, at a conservative guess, 75% mountain, possibly a (she hoped) extinct volcano. What looked like tropical forest occupied most of the rest of the available space, and the bits left over seemed to be mainly beach. She began to circle, looking for a likely landing ground. What looked like rather large birds were circling the cone of the volcano, some beating their wings, others lazily riding on the thermals. But from this distance, they looked wrong, oddly proportioned.

"Aye, weel, Mistress. You dinnae see _those_ taking flight very often." Wee Mad Arthur observed. He was watching with some absorbed interest.

"We had one in Ankh-Morpork not so long ago." Olga remarked. She soothed her mount, Радуга Дэш. Her Pegasus was expressing a little skittishness at the prospect of sharing the airspace with these other winged creatures. He needed calming. Olga regarded the other air-users with dispassionate calm, hoping they'd keep at a distance. They were _big_. By anyone's standards.

"This is Mono Island, Wee Mad Arthur. Strange things happen here and the rules are different. I believe I understand now why Vetinari was very emphatic that one of us should visit."

She steered _Raduga Desh_ downwards, having spotted a promising-looking cave in one side of the volcano cone. It looked to regular an opening to be natural, and the trail to and from looked well-worn. As she descended, she had the feeling that the greenery down below was aware, and it was watching her. Reading her. Assessing the visitor. It was a feeling she'd last had when back in Lancre, visiting the herb-garden established by Granny Weatherwax, _mayhersoulhavemercyontheGods_. Only the feeling was ten times stronger here. Olga shrugged, and steered for a likely open space in front of the cave-mouth.

 _ **Spa Lane, Ankh-Morpork. Some weeks earlier.**_

Johanna Smith-Rhodes got the urgent message, shrugged, and reached for her Watch badge. Being a Special Constable again was good fun, good exercise, and a practical test of the soft skills the Guild of Assassins valued in her. It kept her fit, healthy and alert. She'd dropped out of a Watch involvement, part of a necessary period of semi-retirement from dangerous activity while she had three small daughters to bring up and to be there for. She'd taken hardly any Guild assignments, for one thing. There was still just enough of a conservative Boer woman in her that had nagged her with the old saying – _Kerk, kombuis en kinders_. The three assigned roles of a Vondalaander _mevrou,_ despite the fact she only went to Church as often as was absolutely necessary and her kitchen was in the hands of her very capable cook Dorothea. The third part of the trinity was one she took very seriously indeed. She'd reluctantly accepted it would be bad for her daughters if their mother were to get killed anywhere. Hence – standing down from all but the most straightforward Guild contracts and no Watch work.

But, as she checked the set of her Watch helmet and made sure her badge was securely clipped on, you couldn't be inactive _forever_. Rebecka was nearly eighteen and living in Howondaland. Johanna knew her oldest daughter wrote home as often as she could and now had a privileged job with unparalleled opportunities to see the world, which brought her back to Ankh-Morpork when called for. Even so, she still had to fight down a feeling that Bekki could be writing home _more often_. She winced. It bothered her that as she got older, she was getting more like her own mother. _Ag. I'll be dropping hints about marriage and grandchildren next._

Famke was thriving at the Guild School, in the Fourth Year now and preparing for the big transition, from the Lower School to Taking Black. Famke was growing up fast. She didn't need her mother so much. _If she ever did._

Ruth, the youngest, was turning ten soon. _Got the big decision to make soon with that one. Guild School? It's always the quiet ones… at least she has a big sister there._

Johanna kissed her husband goodbye and went off to an unexpected Watch duty. The Watchman sent to get her was waiting in the hallway. He'd been given a cup of tea.

"Enimel hendling case, you said?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma'am. Commander Vimes asked for you, special."

"Brief me." she invited him. He did. She whistled.

" _Jislaaik_. One of _those_." she remarked.

* * *

Olga dismounted from Raduga Desh, patted his muzzle fondly, then crossed her arms and impassively waited, aware her arrival had been noted. In deference to the Person she was visiting on Official Business, she was in full dress uniform, as befitted the commanding officer of the Pegasus Service. Olga had pulled rank on this one: the parade uniform for the Service was based heavily on Cossack formal dress. Irena Politek, her Lieutenant, had backed her up on this, as had several of the younger and lower-ranked Service pilots who were also Rus by ethnicity, and were delighted with the uniform choice. In the tropical heat, Olga was pleased the colour was predominantly white, with red trim. An impractical colour for everyday, she knew, but it was impressive on special occasions. She began to feel sweat puddling under her feet in the high riding boots, and yearned for a chance to strip them off and go barefoot in the inviting water, so near…

 _Bare_ **everything** _. But the man – the entity – I am here to speak to is male…_

"Я говорю! Какая великолепная лошадь!"

Olgas forced herself not to jump and took care to remain impassive. She noted the voice did not sound entirely human and had spoken the words

"I say! What a wonderfully impressive creature!"

in Rus. Or else, she was hearing it in Rus. Ponder Stibbons had said to her not to be surprised at things like this.

She turned slowly. The person, or Person, she was here to see had turned up. He looked like a scaled-down version of Leonard of Quirm and presented the same sort of air of perpetual intellectual inquiry to the world. He wore the approved God uniform of toga and sandals and was wreathed in a halo of golden light. And, she noted, he was only about four feet tall. In courtesy, and aware prudence was called for, she made the Witch bow.

The God of Evolution smiled benevolently at her.

"Captain… Olga Anastacia Ekatarinavichnya de Kokamaainje-Romanoff, I believe?" he said.

" _Da._ That is correct, sir." she replied.

The God smiled benevolently and resumed his study of her Pegasus.

"And this magnificent beast is called… _Rainbow Dash_?"

Olga winced. Her mount was one of the first two Pegasi, created purely by magic many years before, as the result of a concussed Gorgon being punched in the face by a troll, sustaining a broken nose and a major nosebleed. **(2)** A very much younger Olga Anastacia, remembering a charming fiction for children she'd loved at around the age of four, had conferred the name in a moment of pure whimsy. It had stuck.

"Never mind. Never mind. What brings you to this place? I'm sorry, I don't seem to get too many visitors here, always welcome…"

The God paused, as if trying to recall something unfamiliar from the depths of memory.

"I should offer you a cup of tea, I think…"

He waved absent-mindedly in the direction of a clump of undifferentiated looking shrubs. Olga went very impassive and inscrutable as the plant went into growth over- drive. A long stem shot up at dizzying speed and a flowering bud blossomed, did something dizzyingly fast involving a passing winged insect, and shed its petals. The bud swelled and bulged and Olga watched as an absurdly familiar shape swelled into being. A neighbouring plant was also putting out swellings. Olga watched them erupt into the shapes of cups and saucers…

"Oh, I'm sorry, madam. I should have asked what sort of tea you'd prefer?"

Olga smiled slightly. She was married to a man from Rimwards Howondaland. She'd developed a taste for the stuff, and it would do no harm to test her host…

"I think, _rooibos_." she said.

The God watched with approval as the samovar plant tipped and disgorged steaming amber-red coloured liquid into two cups on the next bush. He deftly detached cups and saucers and passed one to Olga.

It was, she conceded, a very good cup of redbush tea. Olga wondered if she could get hold of some seeds. Ponder had mentioned something about _seeds_ …

"May I ask, out of curiosity, what brings you here?" the God of Evolution asked.

She smiled slightly and reached into her despatch-pouch with a free hand. She brought out a letter sealed with a single sans-serif V in black wax.

"Lord Vetinari." she said, simply, holding out the letter.

The God's face fell.

"Oh…" he said.

 _ **The Temple of Small Gods, Ankh-Morpork. Some weeks earlier.**_

Quite a large crowd had gathered outside Small Gods. With only a few exceptions, people were all looking up. Pausing only to speak briefly to one of the exceptions( **3** ), Johanna and her Watch escort pushed their way through to the front. Sam Vimes was there. He did not look happy. Neither did High Priest Hughnon Ridcully.

Johanna looked up and assessed.

"That bloody thing is going to go straight through the dome! It wasn't built to support that sort of weight!" Ridcully fumed. "beats me as to how it got up there in the first place."

Johanna looked up.

"Fall through? I doubt thet, sir. It hes wings, for one thing."

Sam Vimes smiled sourly at her.

"It's Howondalandian. _You're_ Howondalandian. Got any thoughts as to how you get it down, Officer Smith-Rhodes?"

Ridcully snorted.

"I'll get the bloody bugger down! I need me biggest huntin' crossbow…"

Johanna glared at him.

"Sir. Es I once said to your brother in similar circumstences. Not on _my_ safari." **(4)**

Hughnon Ridcully calmed slightly and looked at her. He grinned, some of the anger dissipating.

"Ah. Yes. Mustrum did say. He was quite taken with yer forward manner."

"Besides, sir." Vimes said urgently. "Anything you shoot will fall off. And something that big is going to _splat_. Too many people down here."

He looked at Johanna again.

"Any Air Witches here, Mr Vimes?" she asked.

Vimes grinned. He gestured upwards. Johanna counted two Pegasi and three broomsticks. They were circling overhead, but as inobtrusively as they could manage, so as not to alarm the stranded animal, which was trumpeting in distress. Johanna noted the two Pegasi were keeping a _very_ wide distance away.

"How many do you want?" he asked, reaching for a pocket omniscope. Vimes spoke into it.

"Calling all stations _flying pig_. Stoneface here. Flying pigs, please respond. Over."

The replies crackled a little, but were distinct.

"Syren responding. Over."

"Firebird responding. Over."

"Red Star responding. Over."

"Zemphis Al responding. Over."

"Lancre Punch responding. Over."

"Syren, leave one flyer up there to watch and get everyone else down here for a heads-together, would you? Thanks."

"You're meant to say "over", Mr Vimes. Over."

Vimes shook his head, then grinned at Johanna.

"New technomancy. I'll never get the hang of it. All these callsigns the Air Watch use. Hard to get your head around. All I know is, Olga is "Syren", and they insist I'm "Stoneface". I'd be annoyed about that, if it wasn't for the fact they call themselves the Flying Pigs…"

Broomsticks and Pegasi were landing now, scattering the crowd as they came in. Olga Romanoff vaulted easily from her mount and saluted him.

She turned to the other, far more junior, Pegasus pilot.

"Best we stay down here until we can transfer to brooms, _devyushka_." she said. "Those things spook our horses. I had a bloody awful time up there, and I'm betting so did you."

" _Ja."_ Johanna said. "They do not mix with horses. Whether they hev wings or not." **(5)**

"So what are you proposin' to do about that bloody thing on top of me dome?" Hughnon Ridcully asked, impatiently. "Most pertinently, how are you goin' to get it down?"

"I'd also like to know how it got here." Johanna said. "Those creatures only exist in Howondaland."

"And one other place." the second Pegasus pilot said. "Dad was telling me about it. He must have mentioned it to you, mum?"

Hughnon Ridcully looked from one to the other. A benevolent smile crossed his face. Vimes grinned too.

"And they both work for _you_ , Sam." Ridcully said. "The mother _and_ the daughter." There was a hint of admiration.

"Only on rostered duty days." Rebecka Smith-Rhodes said. "Most of the time, I've got a Steading to run."

"End only when I'm in this uniform." Johanna Smith-Rhodes added. "Bekki. You end Olga cennot go near thet creature on horsebeck. But I require a lift up there to get me closer."

"Volunteers?" Sam Vimes asked.

"I need somebody who cen Borrow." Johanna said. "I heve a plen."

"There's me." Lieutenant Irena Politek said. "or Amelia."

"You might be best, I think." Johanna said. She noted Irena was currently broom-mounted. "I recall you trying to explain Borrowing to me. I believe I got the sense of it. End thet creature up there is en Osibisa. En elefent with wings. I wish for it to be somewhere else. I need a witch who cen get into its head end make suggestions. To calm its penic."

Irena nodded. She indicated the pillion of her broomstick.

"Hop on. And hold tight."

The broomstick took off. At ground level, three witches in City Watch uniform looked up. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes shook her head.

"There's an elephant a hundred and fifty feet up, sitting uncomfortably on the dome of Small Gods. Of course my mother gets involved and she wants to bring it down. That's Mum."

" _Da."_ Olga Romanoff said. "Are you surprised, _devyuschka_? I should draw it to your attention, however, that this elephant has _wings_. In its panic, it has perhaps forgotten it can fly. Irena is there to remind it there is a way of safely getting down from a high uncomfortable place."

She pulled out her omniscope communicator.

"Syren to _Krasnaya Zvezda. Krasnaya Zvezda_ , please respond. Over."

Irena's voice came back, somewhat tetchy.

"We're here, Syren. Johanna's stalking it right now. Says she's getting a feel for it. And I'd be obliged if we went into silent mode from now, as I've got to get into the right frame of mind for this. Over."

"Prizhnaniyay, Krasnaya Zvezda. Радио молчание, с этого момента. над." Olga replied. She snapped the omniscope closed and returned it to her top pocket.

"Acknowledged, Red Star. Going silent as from now. Over." Bekki translated, for the benefit of Vimes.

"Getting good at our language, Firebird." Olga said. She smiled. "Now, we wait."

 _ **Mono Island, the Widdershins Ocean.**_

The God of Evolution put down the letter from Vetinari.

"Please convey my regards to His Lordship, and advise him I _did_ lose one some weeks ago." he said. "I'm so terribly sorry. For the inconvenience, and all that. But they do rather want to fly away, after a while. It was one of my Version Zero-point-Three elephants with wings, you see. Latest model."

Olga nodded, sympathetically. Ponder Stibbons had told her things wanted to leave Mono Island once they were created. They _really_ didn't want to hang around. It was as if there was a biological imperative going on. Ponder thought they wanted to get to places that were normal, where they could settle down, and retain the same shape, with no risk of being recalled to the workshop for modifications or evolutionary acceleration.

"Usually, Captain Romanoff, I make the best of things by holding open a doorway to Howondaland, where there is already a thriving colony in the wild and the ecological balance is not adversely affected. But for some reason, well, I'd just visited the City Zoo, you see, fascinating place, Ankh-Morpork was on my mind, and, well…"

The God looked crestfallen and anxious. Olga reached out and patted the divine shoulder, reassuringly.

"No harm done, sir." she reassured him. "The Zoo couldn't accept the animal, so we hit on a way to move him to Howondaland."

The God looked interested.

"This _craw-stepping_ thing I hear you use?"

"Aye, laird." Wee Mad Arthur said. He'd been watching with interest and was holding a small mug of something that looked like Bearhuggers. Olga shook her head. Ponder had said the plants here could sense the desires of people and were almost pathetically keen to help out. She suspected a Bearhugger's Old Macabre plant had been called into existence. She also kicked herself for not asking for a vodka and soda with ice **. (6)**

"'Twas easy-peasy. One minute in the elephant enclosure at the Zoo. Next minute, the Veldt. Nae bother!"

 _I just bet he has a pocketful of seeds_ , Olga thought.

The God brightened. "So you'll reassure Lord Vetinari there will be no recurrence?" he asked hopefully. Olga smiled.

"I shall be happy to, sir." she said.

The God relaxed.

"Captain Romanoff, may I prevail on you? Err.. _Rainbow Dash_. I really thought the Pegasus had died out of the world several thousand years ago. Recessive genes, and all that. Looking at him, I had this tremendously good idea for a Version nought-point-Four elephant-with-wings. Those bird wings must give your mount tremendous lift and flying power. A truly efficient design. May I take measurements, so I can scale them up for use on the next generation flying elephant?"

Assured her mount's wings were not going to be removed or harmed in any way, Olga graciously gave permission and helped while the God fussed around with tape measure and sketch-pad. She accepted an invitation to pop back in a week or two to look in on progress. The idea interested her. After surreptitiously collecting a pocketful of seeds from the Samovar Plant, she prised Wee Mad Arthur away from the Bearhugger's Bush, and they set off back for Ankh-Morpork, to report to Vetinari. And to have a cool shower, change her damn boots, and tip the tropical sweat out.

 _ **The Temple of Small Gods, Ankh-Morpork. Some weeks earlier.**_

After a while, the waiting crowd was thrilled to witness the majestic sight of a flying elephant spreading its huge leathery wings and launching itself into the air. After a moment or two of indecision, gravity conceded the fight and it gained altitude, setting off across the city in the direction of the Zoo. Rebecka Smith-Rhodes had a moment of face-palm when she saw the woman sitting on its back, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, was her mother. Her actual mother. But where was Irena?

Olga Romanoff frowned. She beckoned Air Policewoman Amelia Cronkart, a younger Witch from Lower Aceria, known to the Air Police by the callsign Zemphis Al.

"Fly up there and check on Irena, would you?" she asked. Amelia saluted.

"Sure thing, ma'am." she said.

Amelia found Irena sitting cross-legged and still on the parapet. She had taken the precaution of hanging a sign round her neck announcing, in two languages, Я не мертв. Я просто заимствую. I AM NOT DEAD. WORKING WITCH.

She grinned, and after ensuring Irena's broomstick was where she could reach it, she flew back down again.

"Reckon Red Star's safe, ma'am." she told Olga. "It ain't Doctor Smith-Rhodes flying that elephant. She's just a passenger. Irena's doin' the flying, remotely."

" _Horoscho."_ Olga said, with satisfaction. She also wondered what quirks of essential elephant-hood Irena would bring back after Borrowing. The idea amused her.

Sam Vimes exhaled with relief. Good news to pass on to Vetinari.

Amelia turned to Hughnon Ridcully. "Sir, you better send some people up there with brushes and shovels to clear up. Hey, you can sell it to Harry King afterwards for a few dollars, as there's a hellova lot of it!"

 _ **Mono Island. A fortnight later.**_

Olga Romanoff had re-organised the operational diary so that she could fit in a repeat visit to the God of Evolution. To make it official, she had booked herself in on the Genua run, so that after concluding official business there, she could fly on out over the Widdershins Sea. She had even taken a wingmate with her, Sergeant Hanna von Strafenburg.

Ideas were bubbling under and simmering gently on the cooking range of her mind. She wanted to see if this was in any way, shape, or form, possible. And it was strictly unofficial. If it wasn't practical, no harm done; if it _was_ practical, she could square it with Mr Vimes and lord Vetinari later. She hoped.

And now, the two Flight witches were being shown the Workroom. Hanna had also discovered a Schnapps Shrub and an Überwaldean Chocolate Bush. Olga reminded herself to ask about a vodka, later.

"As I was saying, ladies, the Version nought-point-One elephant-with-wings was equipped with scaled-up dragonfly wings. Not tremendously practical, I was forced to conclude, albeit with great reluctance. Moving on, the Version nought-point-Two elephant-with-wings – well, the Howondalandian Elephant has large ears, in a sturdy hide. I considered and thought – make them larger still."

He indicated a small, fat, elephantine creature with over-large ears. It was held in a sort of stasis, frozen in time, and for some reason its hide was pink.

"Alas, aerodynamically unstable, and in flight, the wings were in the wrong place and had the burden of supporting the entire body mass which dangled from the ear-roots. The centre of gravity is completely wrong. Unsupportable strain on the aeroframe."

"Why pink?" Hanna asked.

"It felt right…"

Hanna nodded, dimly understanding.

"So we move on to the Version Nought-point-Three elephant-with-wings. The wings are conventionally mounted and are made of the same tough hide as the ears. The design retains the compound eyes which I hold are essential for a flying creature, and the legs end in talons, all the better for grasping sturdy branches when nesting."

Hanna nodded, approving. "As in the one released over Ankh-Morpork. Those talons played Hell with the copper and the bronze on the dome of Small Gods, incidentally."

"Yes. Not an urban creature. And over here, ladies, the Version Nought-point-Four elephant-with-wings."

This was a flying elephant too. But with Pegasus wings. It also hung motionless, in potentio, waiting to be activated.

Olga grinned.

"Has it gone up for a test-flight yet?" she asked.

A short time later, two determined Witches were test-flying the new Osibisi, having talked the God into it. Their verdict was – do not stunt-fly them. But a remarkably stable and forgiving platform with great potential endurance. Ideal for a heavy squadron. Transport Command, perhaps. Or… just possibly Bomber Command, if we had to?

"Wee Mad Arthur?" Olga called. "I need to find out if we can craw-step them into Feegle Space."

"Aye, mistress!" the Feegle called.

Olga considered. _I'll have to find out if the roof at the Air Station can take the weight. Stabling would be a problem. There's our forward air-station in Lancre. We need to segregate them from regular horses… but Hobley has some under-used land. We need to build a suitable stable. And i will need competent ground-crew. Johanna recruited Ghatian zookeepers for her elephant population...  
_

"We'll take six." Olga said. She was, after all, the commanding officer of Ankh-Morpork's nearest thing to an Air Force. Her job description quite clearly covered things like Equipment Procurement, and Research And Development. She turned to her principal test pilot.

"You know, if we put one of those wooden tower things on the back, that the old armies used to fight from. Crossbow positions. Multiple repeating crossbows plus space for reserve ammunition. We then have Flying Fortresses." Hanna mused.

Olga smiled to herself. It felt right. She still had to sell the idea to Mr Vimes and Lord Vetinari. But provided they were stabled outside the City by responsible people...

* * *

 **(1)** The _Osibisa_ is the winged flying elephant of Howondaland, thought to be an escapee from Mono Island where the God of Evolution was working on a really efficient distribution system for dung, so as to nurture beetles. too good not to incorporate into my take on the Discworld. The Osibisa is now established in Howondaland and makes its nest in really tall strong trees. The mating flight of an Osibisa Queen surrounded by her retinue of drones is something to behold, but, as Howondalandian zoologists emphasise, do not try and observe this from directly underneath. As with so many other examples of local wildlife, this animal has a name in the Vondalaans language: the _Niestaannieonderbeeste_ , or the _Schiessvolelefante._ You have been warned. As yet, the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo does not have any representative examples. The Zoo accepts there are management problems and it would need a pretty big aviary. Lord Vetinari has also remarked, mildly, that pigeons present a big enough ongoing problem. While he believes that the occasional little incident involving a Pegasus relieving its bowels from several hundred feet up is far outweighed by their benefit to the City, he is desirous that we do not import any larger flying creatures. Just yet.

 **(2)** Go to my tale _**Bad Hair Day**_ for the calling into being of the first two Pegasi. An Igor had restored Yuri's nose, remarking that damage to Immortals is always a tough gig.

 **(3)** They couldn't book him for pickpocketing, as he was official Thieves' Guild and had the membership card to prove it.

 **(4)** callback to my tale _**Nature Studies**_.

 **(5)** This is universal: ancient military history enthusiasts are divided about the utility of elephants in battle. But one thing they agree on: horses will not go near them. One advantage of war elephants is their capacity to render enemy cavalry useless: horses will break and run in panic if elephants are nearby and even look like charging them. On the other hand – elephants are frightened, not of mice, but of camels. Camel mounted cavalry were capable of stopping an elephant charge dead. In a Discworld context, perhaps the camels are chanting war cries like "you people might have good memories, but can you do simple maths? Come on, Jumbo, give us a times table…"

 **(6)** Olga was responsible; she only drank her vodka neat if she wasn't on duty.

* * *

Inspired by a historical document discovered by Edinburgh City Council, which reveals that in 1707, action needed to be taken against a performing artist with an animal act who insisted on keeping his animal companion in his lodgings in Edinburgh.

He worked with elephants.

The neighbours complained. The ones living in the flat downstairs most loudly of all. So I wrote a drabble. And it grew.


	3. Combat

_**The Price of Flight – part three**_

 _ **V.02: minor corrections and revisions. We're back… this one has been gestating for quite some time and feels like a logical direction to take, given the way the Air Service has been developing and evolving in the course of the tales so far and given that, In-Universe, at this point in the tale it's been growing for the best part of two decades. We've established that Vetinari's long-term plan is to have something like an Air Force to mesh with his New Model Army and the resurgent Navy. And that the growing Air Arm isn't completely part of the City Watch, despite the fact all pilots have to be Watchmen. What would happen if the Service is ever put to the ultimate test? And one form of that ultimate test has been a central point of two Discworld novels. In my Discworld, the Air Service has gone to war. And found out. Here, Olga and the others contemplate the ultimate Price of Flight.**_

 _ **The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork. One eventful January**_ **(1). F** _ **or those who have asked: this is set earlier than the "present" day in which the service has at least seventeen Pegasi and is poised to add flying elephants. Looking at the chronology: in "Bungle in the Jungle" the Service only had two Pegasi. By the time of "hyperemesis Gravidarum" a year or so later it has at least three - Nottie has joined the Service; and has expanded a little bit more in the years immediately following "Gap Year Adventures". so I'd say the action here in this chapter occurs shortly after the end of GYA - in which Olga is promoted first to Sergeant and a little later to Lieutenant - with accelerated Pegasus breeding now beginning to take off after a slow start. As another "fix" for the time, Rebecka Smith-Rhodes might be six or seven and her sister Famke is pushing three and learning how to be trouble. (neither appears in this tale - too young... and not their story). Which makes it ten or eleven years before Osibisi. E am trying to stick as closely as I can to the chronology of "The Shepherd's Crown", which does allude to a little air-fighting with elves and describes an Elf on a yarrow stalk being shot down in flames after being too slow to dodge a fireball. TP concentrates, for obvious reasons, on the fighting on the ground; he doesn't rule out that Witches are also up there over Lancre and the Chalk fighting in the air, and that's good enough for me. Thus the Air Watch arrive a little too late for the main War Room conference seen in the book. Terry, outside the "main cast" tells us a lot of other, un-named, Witches were in there fighting. Good enough for me - I have imported twenty-six in total, many of whom will be un-named or only appear incidentally. it's probably churlish to be critical of "Shepherd's Crown", but my reservation is that the fighting with the elves is over so soon - I'd have expected that to go to the wire a bit more and last for more than one night. It reads a bit perfunctory. But seeking to weave my own additional story in without contradicting or damaging the original too much. interesting side-note: in TSC, Vetinari gets the news of Granny Weatherwax's death long before the official announcement, as HEX has worked it out and informed Ponder and Ridcully. No doubt Ponder saw the importance of advising the Palace. Here, Vetinari hints to Vimes that something big is happening in Lancre, but does not say what. The news breaks the next day.**_

Commander Sam Vimes knew something was wrong. He could sense when the smooth operation of the Yard had been disrupted and his Watchmen were concerned about something. It was part of the antennae any leader needed to develop if he hoped to lead effectively _ **.**_

Vimes stalked around the Yard, trying to look as inobtrusive as possible, trying to track back from the ripples to the stone thrown into the pool. Something was happening. And, as Commander, he was usually last to know. This bothered him.

"What's up, Fred?" he asked. "Something's happening. And I don't know what. That makes me nervous."

He studied Fred Colon intently. Fred had a slightly worried look on his face. Vimes appreciated this. An old-time street monster like Fred had even better antennae than he did for this sort of thing.

Fred gestured upwards, from where they were standing in the open courtyard and stables – the downstairs stables for conventional horses – and took in the large flat roof above the coach mews. Vimes looked up, frowning. The clacks tower, the seriously tall one with the adapted space at the top, had gone silent. Everything had gone silent. Nothing was moving.

"I'm not sure what, Sam, but Miss Olga got a clacks. She went all quiet. Looks like she was crying a little. Which isn't Miss Olga, not at all. Then she took it to Miss Irena. Miss Irena got a bit tearful too. Then they called in all the pilots. They're all upstairs. Nobody in the air. Something's up, Sam. They're good girls, the best, but they've all been all edgy since yesterday. You know, since young Nottie never come back."

Vimes cross-referenced this to something maddeningly gnomic the Patrician had said at a briefing the previous day. Bloody Vetinari hadn't said it straight, had he? He'd just _hinted,_ and left Vimes to work it out for himself.

And it involved the Air Witches. Vimes steeled himself. He was going to have to confront a gaggle, or a cackle, or a coven, whatever the Hells the word was for a bunch of witches, in their own space where they weren't inclined to open up to outsiders.

 _Damn it, they're also Watchwomen. And I'm in charge. Olga might have been promoted Lieutenant recently and Irena got made up to Sergeant_. **(2)** _So they report to me. I'd better go up there and remind them of how things work._

"Thanks, Fred." Vimes said. "Oh, and Nottie got delayed in Lancre. She's safe. Probably slept in her own bed at home last night. We'll find out why when she reports in." He took a deep breath and went to the stairs.

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork. The previous day.**_

"We now have seven Pegasi." Vetinari observed. "That is pleasing. The breeding programme is paying dividends."

"Sir." Vimes replied.

"And seven riders. Who when they are not on horseback are performing sterling service as rank-and-file Watchwomen."

"Sir." Vimes agreed.

"All in all, Vimes, the expanded Air Watch is proving to be a great success. I am gratified."

"Sir." Vimes said, automatically, wondering what the catch was going to be. There was always a catch. Vetinari frowned. Vimes realised there was a certain expectation that he should be contributing more to what was meant to be a two-sided conversation. He elected to focus on police work. This was safest.

"When they're not on call to deliver diplomatic messages and mailings around the world, sir, I agree it makes one enormous difference. Not just aerial observation and a way of getting around the City that avoids traffic jams. Criminals tend not to put up a fight when somebody like Olga Romanoff chases them down from a broomstick. Then again, anyone picking a fight with Olga is Being Bloody Stupid and on the way to a Suicide. Same goes for the other girls."

"Ah, yes." Vetinari said, thoughtfully. "Lady Romanoff. Lieutenant Romanoff, since she accepted promotion."

Vetinari steepled his fingers. Vimes ploughed on.

"Not just the Pegasus Service girls, it's all the other Witches who just ride brooms and are available all the time for routine police work. Can't see how we did the job without them, sir."

Vimes realised afterwards he'd provided the opening. Vetinari smiled slightly.

"May I ask, Commander Vimes, if you have a contingency plan in place against an event, unlikely as it may seem, in which you would lose virtually all your air cover for an indefinite period?"

"Sir?"

Vetinari looked at him gravely.

"Officer Garlick covers the Pegasus duties to Lancre and the states on the Turnwise coast." he began. "I received a clacks earlier apologising for her not returning on schedule. It appears there is a potential situation in Lancre."

Vimes frowned. He tried to think of scenarios that would detain Nottie Garlick in her home country. Then it hit him.

"Shit, her father's died?" he asked. "She can't come home – well, back here – as she's suddenly become Queen? Hellfire, that means I've lost a good copper, young as she is!"

Vetinari shook his head. He looked grave.

"No, Vimes. Happily, King Verence, and indeed Queen Magrat, remain in the greatest of health. I rather suspect a far more significant person has died. And that this is a death with massive potential to destabilise a country which remains a key ally. I am awaiting confirmation and further information. But I must ask you to be prepared and to be extremely flexible, especially in matters of personnel deployment. As more information comes in, I will keep you briefed. That is all, for now."

"Sir." Vimes said. Puzzled, he let himself be dismissed. Who could be more significant in Lancre than its ruling monarch? Again he wished he paid more attention to things happening outside the City. And why did it impact on his Air Witches? His mind ran the numbers: the Air Watch consisted, at present, of seven Pegasus Witches – he recalled hearing that two mares were gravid with what might well be new Pegasus foals, so, within a year or so, nine? Then there were twenty-one full-time, part time and Special Witch Police Constables, who only rode brooms. A dozen or so Feegle and Gnomes who either navigated the Pegasuses or else rode the birds of prey used as patrol vehicles or rotated between both. Then the clutch of Mokos, the only male pilots in the Service **(3),** who piloted the flying carpets. All commanded, efficiently and austerely, by Olga. Vimes felt a shred of reassurance. He remembered all the witches were Lancre-trained. Okay, so whatever's going on there, they won't _all_ go off at once? Even if they do, I've still got the birds and the carpets, so I can cobble some air cover together…

Vimes absently noted a change in the atmosphere at the Yard. The Air Witches, or those he met, seemed to be preoccupied and distant, as if they'd sensed something. _Something in the air. Literally_.

He paused again. _The shoes haven't started dropping yet. But it's as if they just know the first one's about to fall. And then there's going to be the second one. But from whose feet? And when? They don't know. And it's worrying them._

A little later he went off shift to spend time with Sybil and young Sam. Work could wait. He'd find out what was going on when it started to smell.

 _ **The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Sam Vimes reluctantly climbed the stairs to the Air Station. He wondered exactly _why_ he was reluctant. Okay, they were Witches. You had to be cautious around Witches. But these Witches were also Watchwomen. And a Commander outranked a Lieutenant and a Sergeant. By quite a long way. And they were on Watch time. And the Air Station was still part of his bloody Watch House. He had a perfect right to walk in and ask… Vimes paused. Rank had its privileges, but he still had to find a tactful way to ask Olga Romanoff and Irena Politek exactly what the bloody Hell was happening.

Vimes emerged onto the long wide flat roof of the mews. Underneath him, he knew, was the stabling and garage space for those conventional horses the Watch kept, as well as the patrol and pursuit vehicles. The builders of Pseudopolis Yard hadn't bothered building up from there. On either side of the flat space, the rest of Pseudopolis Yard rose, four storeys higher on one side, if you counted the rooftop. On the other side, only three storeys. In between was a large flat space. Perfect for air vehicles as it offered unimpeded access from two sides. Doorways had been knocked through into the main buildings on either side. Vimes knew two inner floors were the Air Service domain. On the lower side, the clacks tower rose, larger, higher and sturdier than usual, rising to well above roof level. It could be, and was, used for conventional clacksing. But the platform on the top was wider, and extended further than usual. The Air Witches called it The Control Tower. Below and built against the walls on this side were the hangars and technomantic sheds, usually a hive of ground crew activity. Above them, the aviaries housing the patrol birds, the domain of the Flight-Feegle. And – bizarrely if you didn't know The Secret – the rooftop stables, capable of accommodating seven or eight horses. Forty or fifty feet above ground level.

Vimes frowned. Everything was silent. Nobody moved. Hardly any noise from the miscellaneous birds. No hammering, banging or flashes of light from the technomancy that went on. Where were the bloody Dwarfs? And no flight. Nobody taking off or landing. Vimes shook his head. He prowled to the nearest hangar.

Inside he found the ground-crew, the Dwarfs who were employed by the Watch to keep the witches in the air. They looked worried and silent, sitting in a moody group, partially dismantled broomsticks neglected on their worktops, an unrolled flying carpet dangling unheeded from a clothesline, secured by dolly pins. Cigarette and pipe smoke hung heavy in the air.

Vimes glared at a Dwarf who wore a loose baggy tunic and britches, with knee-boots. This Dwarf also sported a cylindrical fur cap, but in deference to his species, it had two horns in it sticking out one to either side.

"What's going on, Mr Oyeff?" he asked. "Why is nobody about and why is no flying happening?"

Senior Ground Technomancer Mig Oyeff gulped nervously.

"There is big problem in Lancre, Commissar Vimes." he said. "Bad sityuatyion. The Great Baba Yaga is no more. _Schmert._ "

Vimes nodded. He gathered somebody important in Lancre was dead. But he was asking a Far Überwaldean whose Morporkian was limited.

"Okay. Where is Lieutenant Romanoff? Why don't I see any pilots?"

"Lady Olga, she is in briefing room. With all pilots. They discuss. Great Baba Yaga is no more. _Schmert._ Dead. Sad day to be _ved'ma_."

The other Dwarfs nodded. They had a brief muttered conversation in Dwarfish. That at least was universal; Mr Schmidt, who came from the other half of Überwald, said something about _K'ez'rek d'b'duz._ Vimes did the linguistic equivalent of counting on his fingers as he reassembled the syllables. Past very definite tense. Female gender, who is – _was_ – to be avoided. _No imperative-sense to proceed using the alternative route around the mountain any more…_

He nodded thanks and went out. He knew where the Air Witches' briefing room and aircrew mess was…

Still feeling an irrational and uneasy sensation of somehow intruding on private witch business – _in my own bloody Watch house?_ – Vimes moved on.

Then he heard it. The best part of thirty female voices intoning, at various speeds and tempos

 _MayhersoulhavemercyontheGods!_

Vimes blinked. Didn't people usually say….

"She's gone, Mr Vimes." Irena Politek said. "We got the news from Nottie." **(4)**

Sam Vimes looked sympathetic, or as sympathetic as he could. He noticed all his Air Witches looked a little bit red and puffy round the eyes. A lot of grieving was going on. He reflected they'd all learnt their trade in Lancre. He got uncertainty and anxiety as well. The greatest Witch on the Disc had died. Witchcraft had lost its expressly not-a-leader. Who had at some point interacted with _all_ these women.

"How does it work?" he asked, diffidently. "Is it like, you know, with the Arch-Chancellor? Do you all get together and elect a new one?"

Vimes realised he'd probably said the wrong thing and that he was being glared at.

" _Nyet."_ Irena said, firmly. Vimes noted she was reverting to her own language, usually a sign of stress or high emotion. He also noted quite a few Air Witches repeating the _"Nyet!"_ and tried to put names to faces… Air Policewoman Tatiana Grigorenko. Air Policewoman Marina Raskova. Air Policewoman Nadezhna Popova… Vimes felt vaguely proud of getting the names right. It took some stunt-pronunciation sometimes. He was aware of a longer bit ending _somethingavichniya_ that invariably went somewhere in the middle, but he knew he wasn't ready for that just yet.

He wondered about asking Olga how she selected her pilots, and decided that could wait. He also noted how, even allowing for his faux-pas in comparing witches to wizards, everyone, not just the Far Überwaldeans (and there seemed to be a lot of them about the place) all turned to look at Olga Romanoff. Especially after Irena explained

"A new leader will emerge. There are possibilities. But we are not ready for this just yet."

Olga, who despite reddened eyes was standing silent and impassive, folded her arms.

"Oh, no." she said, firmly. " _Nyet._ Not me. Absolutely _nyet. Nyet_!"

After a long silence, Vimes asked

"So what happens now?"

Olga stared at him for a few uncomfortable seconds. Then she said

"In the future, who knows? But for now we have our work to attend to. That takes priority."

She started barking orders. Quickly, quietly, with no great drama, the work of the Air Police resumed.

"Быстрый! быстро! Работать, девочки! Пошли!"

Vimes didn't know what it meant but he got the idea. And left, knowing Olga Romanoff was good at command.

Nothing happened for a few weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. Vimes noted more Pegasi than usual were going to and from Lancre. Flying carpets, laden with boxes and crates, were travelling to the Turnwise. Olga, Irena and senior pilots like Nottie Garlick and that mad crazy Überwaldean, Hanna von Strafenburg, were to be seen in heads-together conferences around the place. Nottie in particular seemed anxious and worried. There was talk about somebody called Tiffany Aching who appeared to be stepping up into the Granny Weatherwax position as leader of witchdom. Vimes, who had once met Mistress Weatherwax, idly wondered what sort of uncompromising old bag-of-nails the new woman was **.(5)**

And then, one morning, the second shoe dropped.

Olga Romanoff, backed by a delegation of Air Witches, saluted him with impeccable parade-ground precision. Vimes noted the grave intent on their faces. Especially on that of Nottie Garlick.

"I, and twenty-seven witches under my immediate command, formally request to take a grandmother's funeral." she said, in a voice that did not in any way, shape or form allow for the possibility of the answer being "no".

Vimes sighed. He'd spoken to Vetinari. Or rather, Vetinari had spoken to him. He'd been expecting this.

"All of you? She must have been a busy grandmother." Vimes remarked. He refrained from commenting that surely the Grandmother he was thinking of had already been buried, some weeks previously.

" _Da_." Olga said. "Almost right. Except her funeral has not happened yet. And we are all most keen to be present when it does."

"Olga, you are not advocating _murder_ , are you?" Vimes said, wearily.

He noted the witch delegation indicating their assent and willingness to be present at a funeral.

" _Nyet_ , Commander. We think of it as pest control. The grandmother we have in mind is not our grandmother. But a lot of _Elves_ are her grandchildren."

Vimes saw Olga part-draw her Cossack sabre and touch the blade. He restrained a shudder. That wasn't just necessary prudence when you said the word out loud. If the metal you touched had a long sharp edge, that was also a _threat._

He recalled the time Elves had tested the defences of Ankh-Morpork. So had Vetinari. Who had reminded Vimes.

"How long do you reckon you'll be gone for?" he asked.

Olga gave a fatalistic shrug.

"As long as it takes." she said.

Vimes sighed.

"El.. _They_.. can fly, can't they?" he asked.

Olga nodded.

" _Da._ We meet them in the air. And we destroy them."

There was a long silence.

"When are you going?" he asked.

"I think today. We are prepared."

Vimes offered Olga his hand. He'd heard things about the _other_ sort of training the Air Police was giving its flyers. Vetinari had said he saw no reason to interfere, and it appeared to be good healthy exercise in the open air that was sharpening their reflexes most admirably. Capital recreation for the ladies of the Air Service, he fancied.

"Bring them back alive, Olga. If you can." he said.

She nodded. Then took her squadron off to war.

* * *

Vimes watched his Air Wing depart for Lancre. There was something depressingly military about it. But it radiated efficiency. All normal work in and about Pseudopolis Yard had stopped and Watchmen were looking up, absorbed in the spectacle. Vimes was up in the viewing platform in the control tower, watching, and quietly hoping he wouldn't lose too many people. His most senior officers had gathered here too: Carrot, Angua, Pessimal, Inspector Loudweather of the Particulars, and, inevitably, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs.

"ME-110 model, is that." Nobby said, watching a large two-seater broom taking off. "Saw action in that business in Howondaland not so long ago." **(6)** Nobby sighed a frustrated sigh. "Repeating crossbows fore and aft. Designed for fighting and shooting things down."

Nobby mimed a " _dakka-dakka-dakka_!" to emphasise the point.

"You know, I asked Miss Olga if I could transfer to the Service as an air gunner." Nobby said. He sounded genuinely baffled that he'd been refused. "I could do that, I know I could!"

"Right now, they're using the two seaters to take passengers" Angua observed. "That poor Dwarf doesn't look very happy at all!"

"Essential ground crew." Inspector Pessimal said. "It does look as if Lieutenant Romanoff has covered all eventualities. And there's only so much room on the carpets, and not enough of them."

They watched the flying carpets, laden with crates and what looked like tied bundles of reserve broomsticks, fall into formation with the larger two-seaters. Echelons of Air Witches fell in to give cover on both sides of the transports.

"Why's she sent a lot of her flyers up high and nowhere near the transports?" Vimes demanded.

"Top cover, sir." Carrot explained. "Olga explained it to me. Apparently you can never get high enough. Anything attacking the transports has to get through her _fighters_ first."

"And some of them looks like the ME-262's!" Nobby exclaimed. "You know. The ones his lordship don't want them to fly at full turbo over the city, as they makes a hell of a bang and breaks windows! And -wow! See them twin-broom beauties? They've got to be Mr Oyeff's design, the Mig-twenty-one! Two brooms on one shaft, see? Fastest thing out, even faster than the two-six-twos! Oh, wow! I knew they was developing those, but this is the first time I've seen one flying!"

Nobby, bouncing in excitement, squinted upwards.

"That's gotta be Miss von Strafenburg flying the MIG-21… integral repeating crossbow in the lower stick, built in, heavy bore… just sight the nose on whatever you're firing at, and it gets creamed, cheesed and turned into yoghurt!"

They watched the air fleet disappear into the Turnwise sky.

"They're flying the long way, then. She's not using the Feegle to craw-step them?"

Pessimal shook his head.

"Too many Witches in the air and not enough Feegle, sir. I understand the Feegle are accompanying them. Well, try to keep Feegle out of a fight."

Vimes shook his head, fervently hoping they'd all return.

"Did they leave anyone behind?" he asked. A little part of him was gloomily thinking " _At least Widows and Orphans is in a healthy state_.."

Inspector Pessimal cleared his throat. "I understand Lieutenant Romanoff made her pilots draw straws for one essential duty, sir. Lord Vetinari flatly forbade them from taking any of the Pegasi. They are, in His Lordship's opinion, too valuable to risk losing. They remain here. The ladies who lost in the draw are tasked with feeding, watering, grooming and exercising the Pegasi and, where possible, providing you with a skeleton air service. Otherwise, they've cleared out virtually everything. The hangars and stores are empty."

Vimes sighed. He'd expected that. Although, he had to admit, he'd just witnessed some impeccable organising going on. His flyers knew what they were about. He almost felt sorry for the Elves, in fact; his understanding was that they came in great big bunches in a sort of chaotic undirected rush. And it looked as if they were going to be up against a well-organised professional air force. _Well, yes. But only Olga and Irena have been in action. In that business in Howondaland a year or two back. And even then, they were only doing ground attacks. Nothing came back at them in the air. They got shot at from the ground, yes. Irena's Pegasus got hit. How will they deal with other flyers?_

 _ **The Great Hall, Lancre Castle**_

The Elves had been trickling into Lancre and the Chalk in small groups for some time now. These were just nuisance raids, reconnaissance perhaps. But they had caused damage, hurt and death. The gathering of Witches at the Castle, Witches drawn from all over, all the Witches who could be found, were discussing and debating what was to be done. There was one thing they were in agreement on: these were the opening skirmishes. A greater battle was to come.

Mrs Earwig was determined to get the last word in. The others, understanding and patient, allowed her to intone "Let the runes of fortune guide and protect us all…"

And then Shawn Ogg ran down into the Great Hall. He seemed excited.

"Ma'ams! We got some more witches arriving! Loads of Witches!"

Tiffany Aching smiled slightly.

"Magrat, is this to do with all those flying carpets delivering lots of stuff here?"

Magrat Garlick smiled, the smile of a Queen with an Ace in her hand.

"Esmeralda Margaret and the girls she works with. Yes."

Magrat was probably the only person who used her daughter's full name. She was Nottie to everybody else.

And then Nottie was descending the stairs along with Olga, Irena and Hanna.

Olga looked around her, recognising faces and friends. She made the Witch bow to Tiffany and Nanny Ogg. Tiffany smiled and bowed back.

"Well, Olga, love." Nanny said. "You come back."

" _Da_. We are here." Olga agreed. She exchanged nods with Petulia Gristle and others she and Irena had known in the long-ago training coven. And exchanged a long moment of eye-contact with Annagramma Hawkins, who had signally failed to impose her dominance on the two older foreign girls. Like a cat presented with a problem she couldn't fix, Annagramma had dealt with it by simply ignoring them.

Lettice Earwig, Annagramma's mentor, who disapproved of Olga and Irena, glared at them.

"I would have thought this would be of no interest to you." Mrs Earwig said. "What with you being foreign. _And_ with you working for a salary. For Lord Vetinari."

Olga acknowledged that she was in Ankh-Morporkian uniform and at the moment did not look like a witch.

"Babiuschka Earwig." she said. There was a way of putting backspin on the word _"babiuschka"_ that made it sound almost but not quite like an insult. Where it meant "silly ignorant old woman", and not "esteemed older lady with a good idea as to how things really work **"(7)**

"That's Ea-ah-wig-AH!" the older woman said, icily. Olga inclined her head as a sort of apology.

"For that I apologise. I am, as you say, foreign, and Morporkian is not my first language. My pronciation is poor, perhaps? _Nichevo_. I am, nevertheless, here. There is a need for witches. And for people prepared to fight. I bring you fighters. Twenty-six of them. With others to help and support."

"We are foreign." Irena Politek said. "But we lived and trained here. We will not see this place trampled on by Elves."

Irena drew her sword. It had an ominous metallic ring as it slipped from the scabbard. Observers saw twenty-seven inches of uncompromising metal. Irena touched the steel. She noted the strange girl nearby to Tiffany Aching, the one in idealised peasant costume that did not look right, shudder in revulsion.

"I don't hold with Witches using weapons." Mrs Earwig battled on. "It says that you don't trust magic. That you're not really a Witch. Besides, the Lore says _do no harm_."

"Really?" Irena said. "A year or two ago I was caught in a battle in Howondaland. I used magic, _da_. But when a lot of enemies are rushing at you with great big spears and they are too close, then you are glad of a sword to draw. And in that fight I used this sword. Gladly. Also." Irena patted the pistol crossbow holstered at her waist. It had been a last-minute loan from a friend before she had flown out. "I used this. Or something like it. With every intent to kill. _And it harm none_ may be the Lore, but it is not so difficult to break the Lore when others are seeking to do harm to _me_. And if you are trained in the _shaksha_ by Cossacks. They are a direct people who will tell you that if you are _not_ doing harm in a fight, then you are not fighting."

"But you're here now." Queen Magrat said. "With lots of pilots. Who are all trained to fight?"

" _Da_ , Majesty." Olga said. "Lord Vetinari sends greetings. And an Air Force I am instructed to place under your command. He also reminds King Verence that he is honouring the Treaty."

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork**_.

"Now we wait, Vimes." Vetinari said.

Sam Vimes nodded. There wasn't really a great deal else he could do.

"Vimes." Vetinari said. "Do you recall the incident some years ago, when those entities who we choose not to name decided to test our defences and our preparedness? The wizards at the Thaumatological Park had been doing unwise and ill-advised things which allowed them a gateway. Those wizards were of course spoken to most severely afterwards."

"Of course." Vimes agreed.

"They released a single unicorn into a crowded produce market." Vetinari reflected. This caused chaos, confusion and a lot of direct and indirect damage later estimated at eight thousand dollars. It tied up a lot of Watch resources. Major roads into the City were impassible. Whilst the Watch – with no blame to you or to Captain Carrot – was tied up in dealing with this, the main incursion happened in the Unreal Estates causing a lot more damage and loss. It required the combined resources of the University, the City Watch, the Assassins' Guild, and such City Witches as could be found, to contain and to destroy our intruders." **(8)**

"I remember, sir. Doctor Smith-Rhodes got a bit annoyed."

"And embarrassed, Vimes. She made the error of viewing the unicorn purely as a horse with a horn on its head. I understand she had an opportunity later of pointing out to the owners of the unicorn exactly how irritated she was."

The two contemplated the memory of the Day of the Elves together, in a reflective silence.

"This is an adversary not to be underestimated, Vimes." Vetinari said. "They are dangerous and, to a certain value of the word, intelligent. Let us say they break through in Lancre and take control of that country, thus gaining a foothold in our world. Do you believe they would stop there? An army of el – _these people_ – marching on Ankh-Morpork, having had time to consolidate and exploit the resources available to them. And that endangers this city. _I will not have that!"_

Vetinari calmed himself.

"Besides. Lancre is an ally. Our Pegasi are bred there. The country provides raw materials this city consumes. Its people have migrated here and enrich our city. Captain Carrot, for instance, is a Lancre man. Or possibly Dwarf. Every Witch in the Air Arm was trained in Lancre. Several are Lancre natives. Did I mention we have a mutual assistance treaty with Lancre?"

Vimes thought quickly.

"If Lancre is attacked, we come to its aid?"

"And if Ankh-Morpork is attacked, Lancre is treaty-bound to come to our aid." Vetinari said. "Which is a useful clause when it comes to releasing Lancre-trained people in my service to go, on indefinite leave, to fight for Lancre. Whilst wearing Ankh-Morporkian uniforms. Verence will then continue to honour the agreement by which, for instance, Pegasi bred in Lancre to be flown by Ankh-Morpork. Goodwill and international understanding, Vimes."

Vimes tried hard to look approving.

"And the Air Watch?" Vimes asked.

"They get unparalleled combat experience." Vetinari said, with a hint of satisfaction. "Something nations such as Klatch will watch and take note of. They took the carpet pilots with them, after all. All of whom report back to an intelligence handler at the Klatchian embassy."

Vetinari paused.

"Which you were, of course, aware of?"

Vimes tried not to say "errr…". _Damn it, it's obvious. And damn him, he spotted it before I did._

"Klatchian spies in the Air Watch…. Of course, sir. Obvious."

Vetinari gave Vimes a long knowing look.

"Lieutenant Romanoff is aware. She sees no reason to take action, provided the Klatchians are kept away from information that really needs to be kept secret. But we'll discuss this later. Also, Vimes, following the passing of mistress Weatherwax, Lancre requires time to become stable again. I understand a new Head Witch is emerging. I have privately assured her of my full support. The presence of the Air Watch is testimony to this. I therefore require you to cope as best you can in their absence. And, Vimes?"

"Yes, sir?"

"What are the exact provisions of the Widows and Orphans fund with regard to compensation of the death on active Watch service of an Air Witch? Please furnish the details. No great rush."

 _ **Lancre Castle**_

Tiffany Aching and Nanny Ogg welcomed each of the new Witches by name, and made themselves known to the Klatchian pilots of the magic carpets and the ground technomancers, who were officially non-combatants, despite tulwar swords and axes having travelled with them.

They quickly dealt with administrative details, such as organising crew quarters and establishing a ground support base in one of the lower rooms of the Castle.

"I can start taking patrols out straight away." Olga said. "Tell me where elves have been reported. We will begin searching for them."

"One thing first." Tiffany said, noting how Olga had done the _touching-the-metal-of-my-sword thing._ "You need to have no doubt at all as to what you're dealing with. Everybody else knows, after I organised a practical demonstration. However, you all arrived late. Get all your people together, and I'll introduce you to Nightshade. Let me explain…"

The next eternity – afterwards, Tiffany said it had only been fifteen minutes – was the most hellish thing Olga had ever experienced. And she wasn't the only one.

 _Olga Anastacia Ekatarinavichnya Romanoff._ The voice in her head was kindly, and amused. _A daughter of a great family. And of a great people. Your family were rulers once. Of a vast Empire that stretched from Überwald to the ocean and from the Hub to Klatch. The Empire of the Ruskiya, the Rus peoples united._ In her head, Olga saw the Disc. Not just the relatively tiny sliver of land straddling the border of Zlobenia and Far Überwald where she had been born. But the massive, almost unimaginable, extent of former glories, running like a wave virtually to Genua and Kythia on the most distant sea. _Your father is a disappointed ineffectual bombastic oaf who has neither the wit nor the power to be the Tsar. But his daughter can be Tsarina. She can lead. She can unite. You got nearly thirty Witches to do your bidding? You have learnt how to herd cats? You made them into an Air Force? Imagine what you can do with a people. Tsarina Olga. Olga The Great. Little Mother of all the Rus Peoples. It can be yours, Olga Anastacia. Maybe we can help._

" _Nyet."_ Olga said, wondering why her voice felt small and uncertain and ineffectual. She saw her cousin Natasha, also a Grand Duchess in waiting. Natasha the trained and experienced Assassin.

 _Of course, Natasha could kill you and take the crown. The triple tiara of the Tsarina, isn't it beautiful? Maybe Natasha could. She is cold, beautiful and ruthless and without conscience. Diamonds suit her. She went to the Assassins' School. You did not. She would kill you. And you would not withstand. Of course, you could kill her first, but you're weak. Ineffectual. Hesitant. And even if you withstood her and became Tsarina? You get the restored Empire? Do you think you could hold it? Vetinari would see a threat to Ankh-Morpork. Why do you think he took an interest and tamed you to his service, to do his will? And you, a Romanoff, heir to Tsars, allow this? To be Vetinari's trained she-bear? Tsarina Olga. Your Empire would fail and fall. You would be too weak, too stupid, indecisive. You would as your people have done before. Your people. Hah. Wherever a people like the Rus have emerged in the multiple worlds, sooner or later a Leader arises who mistakes brutality for intelligence, terror for rule, the whip for enlightenment. You would be weakest of all. Imposing new terrors on top of old because you believe the previous terror was not enough. To die in a gilded cage in an empire of ruins. Imagine. A protracted lonely death with people too terrified to approach you, lying paralysed and unable to move, in your own bodily waste because none will clean and nurse you_ **(9)…** _your death, Tsarina Olga, and all because you were too stupid to notice the trap._

"Nyet!" Olga screamed.

And elsewhere…

 _Princess Esmeralda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre. Sounds grand, doesn't it? But look around you. An impoverished backward one-horse kingdom populated by rustic peasants. This is your inheritance? To be tied to this crumbling ruin of a castle forever? Named for the old bitch who taught you witchcraft, who you know, deep down, you will never even be one tenth as good as? Child of a mother who sincerely tried to get your name spelt correctly on the birth certificate but who failed even in that? This is what you want to fight and risk your life for? Are you that stupid and naïve, girl? You know, I rather think you are… there's no hope for you. Look at the parents who made you…_

"No!" Nottie screamed.

And elsewhere…

 _You are a Countess, Hanna von Strafenburg. But look at you now. What are you doing here? What, taking orders from Ivankas? Everybody knows they're Untermensch. You have been taught that since birth. Ivans are smelly primitive peasants who dress in animal furs and live in swamps. They grunt at each other in an uncivilised language. You are Überwaldean nobility. You belong to a purer race. Something is lacking in you, Hanna. You take orders from Ivankas. You have no self-respect, do you? No pride. None whatsoever. Still, it all goes back to childhood, habits of self-abasement and degradation. Remember the time when you…_

"Nein!" Hanna screamed.

And elsewhere…

 _Abdullah el-Khalim. You like your job. You respect the people. You fly carpets for the Air Police. You are trusted and accepted by the witches. If truth be told you look on Olga Romanoff with adoration, a strong, commanding, beautiful woman, and you have little daydreams about her. What it might be like if.. ah, you poor fool. That woman is as far above you as the top of Cori Celesti and as unreachable. And when she finds out you are also spying for the Klatchians and keep their Embassy informed about the Air Watch and all they do – well, isn't that nice? Betraying their trust and confidence in you? Does that make you feel good, Abdullah? Or like a lowly squirming maggot in fresh camel dung? Enjoy the dung, maggot. Crawl. That is all you are fit for and you know it. Betraying the confidence and the trust of a woman you are, foolishly, in hopeless love with. Eat the dung, Abdullah. Yum, yum. Yummy dung. And even that is still too good for you._

And carpet pilot Abdullah el-Khalim screamed.

 _Irena Yannesavichniya Politek. It's not hard to see what makes you think the way you do. Your father is a rebel. He cannot hold down much more than the most basic labouring jobs because he is viewed with suspicion. Oh, he's careful. The Chekha suspect him. You remember when late at night other men and women visited your home with great secrecy and they would discuss politics. They looked with nostalgia to a time in your country's history when things were different and a new way was possible, and the nobility, including the all-powerful Romanoffs, were either liquidated or forced to flee into exile. Your father and his circle endlessly analyse what became when The People took power, and vow to learn from those mistakes, and to do it better next time. And you absorbed this and were schooled in the ideals of Kommunisma. Why, you even have small discreet red stars painted on either side of your broomstick just to make the point. Remember how much you hated Lady Olga, the same age as you and born to privilege you could not even dream of? Is she your friend? Really? Are you not merely a useful servant to her? A lackey of nobility? Yet you fight alongside her and take her orders? What sort of a communist is that? How you betray your ideals. You travelled and went to Lancre. And then to Ankh-Morpork where you met people like Reg Shoe and Estressa Partleigh. And even after meeting people like this you are still a communist? Even after learning what became of the Rus people when they tried to make it work, when people who think like Reg and Estressa got into positions of real power? And knowing all this, you still cling to the Manifesto? This takes a special kind of stupidity and wilful perverse idiocy, Irena Yannesavichniya, and you have this in abundance. But this is not surprising. Inability to learn from experience. Harnessed to a peasant idealism. You should never have got this far, Irena Yannesavichniya. Your destiny, born a mouzhik and a kulak, is to be ankle-deep in mud and filth. You're a filthy ignorant peasant who thinks she is intelligent. Wrongly so. You are born to cabbages, beetroot and potato. And you don't even deserve those. But you do deserve being smothered in mud and dirt and the human waste used to fertilise the fields. Mud and shit, Irena. The mouzhik's destiny._

"Nyet!" Irena moaned.

Afterwards, the Air Witches discussed their experiences. Oddly enough, they felt closer afterwards.

"And now?" Nottie asked.

Hanna stood up. "With your permission, Lieutenant." she said. "It is time to begin killing Elves. I am ready to do this. I would be delighted to do this."

" _Horoscho_." Olga said. She looked at Irena. "Tovarischnya Politek. Does the inescapable logic of the dialectic allow you to begin killing the enemy?"

" _Da_." Irena replied. "The hammer to crush their skulls and the sickle to gut them with. Is Her Ladyship prepared to sully her hands with elf-blood, or would she prefer her servants to do this for her?"

Olga grinned. "let's get everybody together." she said. " _V'Put."_

The fliers were tired after the long flight out of Lancre, but eager to get into the air again. Olga grouped them in a semicircle on the upper ramparts of the Castle, and began the briefing. Tiffany and other senior Witches were watching from a little way away.

"I shall be brief." Olga said. "The main attack has yet to come. Mistress Aching and Mrs Ogg believe it will come from two directions. From here and from the Chalk. What Lancre and the Chalk have seen so far are merely probing attacks. Nonetheless, these have been destructive and have caused hurt and death. We will seek to impede those. I wish for standing patrols over – _around_ – the Stones. _Do not under any circumstances seek to over-fly the standing stones. Important._ Fly around them. At first sight of the main attack – which will come from the air as well as the ground – raise the alarm. Tonight we will get to know, or to remind ourselves, of the ground where we will fight. If you meet elves – seek to damage them. By whatever means."

Olga paused.

"Thanks to the Lady Nightshade we now know what they will try to do to our minds. They will play on our deepest fears. On events in our pasts where we did not behave as we should, or where we failed. They will seek to make us feel worthless. I believe they will realise we are of many nations and ethnicities and seek to drive divisions between us."

She looked to Hanna.

"Is that not correct, Fritz?"

Hanna grinned.

"Very much so, Ivanka."

"So therefore, we wear steel. Breast and backplates. And where possible, steel helmets. This will confer protection in more ways than the obvious. And now, dispositions. I have an idea to draw out any airborne Elves who have crossed over. I am told there are some. Listen to me now…"

Tiffany, Nanny Ogg, and Lady Nightshade watched them go, taking off by ordered echelons. Tiffany Aching, a woman who was not a natural broomstick pilot, wondered briefly about the mind-set of a Witch who lived to fly.

"Witches for everything, Tiff." Nanny Ogg said, cheerfully. "Them girls are the ones what loves flyin'. You recall Olga and Irena were buggers for flyin'. Allus have been."

"I remember." Tiffany said. "And it seems they're a sort of magnet. They're drawing in the others who love to fly. The best pilots."

"Ankh-Morpork. Best place for them." Nanny Ogg remarked. She took a draw of her pipe.

"Lankin and Peaseblossom and the rest are in for a surprise, I think." Nightshade said. "My people may be fast in the air. But is that enough?"

"Not by a long chalk. No." Nanny said. "Time for bed, I think. We got the Watch, watchin' over us."

Elves were indeed aloft, searching for prey. In the dark of the night, a scout flew close to his leader and nudged him. They exchanged delighted smiles with no warmth or kindness to them. Several hundred feet below, two black-clad women in the distinctive pointy hats were puttering along on broomsticks. Old human women, riding those laughable slow contraptions that could barely go much faster than a walking human, not very far above the ground. They looked nervous, frightened, as if aware they were exposed to danger and wanting to get to their destination as quickly as possible. An easy target, one they could have fun with. A brief burst of Elf-song alerted the others. Six Elves manoeuvred into position on the fast agile yarrow-stalks. They would play a chase game, have fun with the old women, pretend to offer them escape routes, and then close them – with luck, this would occupy them for some hours before they tired of the game and moved in for the kill. Elves were already nocking arrows and drawing sharp flint knives.

("Цель видела. Ожидать." Tsel' videla. Ozhidat'.")

They utterly failed to spot what was several hundred feet above them and closing in fast.

The leading elf realised something was not right when the two old witches suddenly veered off in opposite directions and their brooms put on an unbelievable acceleration that he had been assured human broomsticks were incapable of. That was his past thought before the fireball, projected from some way behind him, the one he never even saw coming, hit. It suddenly illuminated the night. The other elves, pulling up short, saw the dark shapes backlit by the glow. They were getting nearer.

"ЦеЦель уничтожена! Tsel' unichtozhena! Ozhidat'."

One of the remaining Elves looked around him. Where he had previously counted five fellows in the air, he was now hard-put to see even one. But what he did see was the human woman riding an impossibly fast broomstick. Straight at him, head-on. Desperately, he tried to discharge his arrow. He reflected that the black fur cap she was wearing looked really good, so if he got to kill her he'd have that. Maybe take that long red hair too, perhaps keep it attached to her scalp to keep it all together…

The arrow went wide. And the red-haired woman in the black fur cap veered off to her left, for just far enough. The Elf's last visual impression was the long flashing sabre in her right hand, the iron getting near enough to confound his thoughts, and then it was no longer near but somewhere on his other side, receding from him and trailing green blood…

"Я казак! с мечом!" Olga shouted. She dispassionately watched the two parts of the elf plummeting separately down towards the treetops of the forest. His yarrow stalk floated uncertainly, and then inert, in the air. Olga wondered for a second or two and then, very cautiously, retrieved it. Maybe the technomancers can work them out, she thought.

"Any casualties?" she asked, as Tatiana Grigorenko flew up beside her, still in the old-witch disguise that had taken in the elves.

"None. Looks like we got them all."

" _Horoscho_. Are these things worth retrieving, do you think?"

Tatiana studied the yarrow stalk.

"Probably not. Maybe they go inert like this when the elf's dead."

Olga shrugged.

"Let's get a couple anyway. For the tekniks."

They were the first kills in action by the Air Witches. They would not be the last.

 _ **8500 words… to be continued**_.

Приготовь мне копченую рыбу. Я вернусь на завтрак. – the nearest I can get to "Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast". To which the only possible reply is – "what a woman!"

 _ **(1)**_ Checking background detail in _**The Shepherd's Crown**_ to get this right: the early part of the book mentions that the action, including the establishing event of the death of Granny Weatherwax, takes place in a time between Autumn and Spring when the dead leaves of Autumn are still on the ground to be picked up and swirled about in the wind, and the trees are gearing up for new growth. Tiffany Aching at this point has time and leisure to visit the standing stones of the Chalk, so spring lambing evidently has not begun yet. January, possibly February, fit the timescale for this. I could be wrong – as this story is contemporaneous with TSC, I am going to re-read the book and look for clues as to the time of year and will revise accordingly.

 **(2)** See my tale _**Gap Year Adventures**_ , where Olga and Irena end up with the promotions both have spent years avoiding.

 **(3)** Vimes had vetoed, for the moment, hiring in any bloody Wizards. Olga had backed him up. The fact some Wizards are flight-capable didn't mean they'd fit in, she had argued.

 **(4)** Irena had earnt her right to a "Mr Vimes" by extricating him through a sky that was full of large rocks being hurled by trolls. That had taken some seat-of-the-pants flying.

 **(5)** Angua and Carrot tactfully reminded him that Tiffany Aching had once spent a night in the Watch cells. Vimes, his mind set to _hard as nails old crone,_ boggled slightly. "What, the kid?" he asked, incredulously.

"more than a kid, Mr Vimes." Carrot said, seriously. Angua nodded, emphatically.

 **(6)** Now go to my story _**Bungle In The Jungle.**_

 **(7)** or "Witch".

 **(8)** to my Disccworld Tarot short, _**The Ace of Swords**_.

 **(9)** The death of Joseph Stalin happened this way – after a stroke he was paralysed and lying unattended on a sofa for over two days, completely conscious, but unattended because the people around him were utterly terrified and no doctor would come out because they were terrified of taking the blame (it didn't help that just before his death, Stalin had been purging Russia's medical doctors of "undesirable anti-social elements", which is unfortunate, as very shortly he would need the best medical attention himself)… Stalin's death was long, miserable and utterly lonely.


	4. Into War

_**The Price of Flight – part four**_

 _ **Aircrew selection. And more combat.**_

 _ **V0.1. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space.**_

 _ **We're back… following on from the end of the prior chapter, but first, more backstory. Then a darker turn as the Battle of Lancre happens in the air. Adding backstory to fill in the gaps about several characters who are growing in my tales. I'm also getting very definite vibes about Hanna von Strafenburg and how to develop this character and round her out. Especially how a Discworld "German" interacts with Discworld "Russians".**_

 _ **Lancre Town, a few years before we pick up from the end of last chapter.**_

 _ **Prologue, one:**_

The Witch Trials were over for that summer. Most people were already ebbing away from the show site; others were being drawn to the beer-and-barbecue which would inevitably last till the small hours of the next day. Twilight was already oozing over the horizon. Disregarded by the general public, Witch business was still happening. In a shadowed and gloomy corner of the field far from others, the two young witches, both somewhere between sixteen and seventeen, stood attentively. Granny Weatherwax herself was Taking An Interest. Which they knew was no small thing. Next to her, the smaller wider figure of Nanny Ogg, reflectively pulling on her foul pipe, was slightly more reassuring. But only slightly.

Granny took her time in speaking. Both witches felt her eyes boring into them.

"I don't hold much with them things you was doin' in your piece just now." Granny said. " _Showy_ , to my mind. _Flashy_. A broomstick's just a tool. You knows, for getting' between places promptly without needin' to walk. But what you two was doin'…"

Granny let her words tail off, ominously.

Nanny grinned.

"Come on, Esme." she said. "You got to admit, that thing they did with the smoke was clever. Beats me how they didn't set their brooms on fire!" ( **1)**

Granny made a _hmmph!_ noise. Trying to look impassive – they came from a faraway people who had turned _poker-faced_ and _impassive_ into a national trait - the two girls awaited their fate.

"I'll be honest with you." Granny Weatherwax said, dropping _the thing with the broomsticks_ for now. "I'm not goin' to wrap it up in flannel and soft words nor put a pink ribbon on it or anythin'. You two ain't going to get Steadings in Lancre. You're both too forn to fit."

"Nothing personal, loves." Nanny Ogg said. "You're both bloody good Witches and I'm bettin' you both knows exactly how good you are. Wouldn't be Witches, else. Even before you came here you had all that trainin' from your local Witch. You got some more in Lancre. But the thing is…"

"We're too foreign for Lancre. _Da_. We worked that out." said the young witch who spoke the better Morporkian.

"And I'm just bettin' in the years to come we gets more girls from forn parts who've heard about Lancre. 'Specially since Miss Tick's out there findin' em. But you was pretty much the first. But…"

"I know." The spokeswitch said. "Local girls. Come first. We accept that. A girl from Lancre coming to _our_ country would have difficulties fitting in. Langyuage, for one."

Nanny noted the hint of an exotic foreign language. She smiled sympathetically and went on.

"'sides, Lettice bloody Earwig don't like you. Too _opinionated_ , she said. She don't want you in Lancre."

"But Annagryammya Hawkins, she is idiot." the second girl, with the sketchier grasp of Morporkian, said. "And her teacher, she is _bigger_ idiot. _Bol'shoya nevezhestvenniy duraka_!"

Nanny shook her head. A hint of a smile came to the face of Granny Weatherwax.

"I hears you intends to go somewhere else?" Granny said.

" _Da_ , Babiuschka Weatherwax." said the second girl, whose name was Irena. "We are to return to _Rodinia_."

Granny, who had needed to have it explained to her what a _Babiuschka_ was, nodded, understanding.

"The Homeland." said the first girl, whose name was Olga. "But not to our Home. At present, not possible."

"Not with _your_ father." the second agreed. Olga glared at her.

" _Nyet._ He would imprison me and have _you_ whipped." Olga said. She turned to Granny and Nanny.

"We are going further." Olga said. "We have discussed this. Irena needs more training in riding a horse. She can ride a broomstick…"

"We _know_." Granny Weatherwax said, darkly. "We _seen_ her ridin' a broomstick. You too."

"But she cannot ride a horse for long, although admittedly she no longer falls off the other side." Olga continued. "And I myself need advanced training in weap… in skills in which I am deficient. In return for their providing this tuition, we serve the people as _ved'mya_. As Witches. We hear our motherland needs Witches. We go to where we are needed. And this time we _fly_."

" _Da._ To steppe country of Cossack peoples. We wish to spend maybe year there. As _Ved'mya_." Irena confirmed.

This time Granny Weatherwax smiled. Not a wide smile and not for very long. But it was a smile. Not many people got one. Nanny Ogg hid her suspicion that Irena Politek's Morporkian was nowhere near as bad as she made out. She'd spent over a year in Lancre. And she'd been able to follow this conversation perfectly well. Nanny reflected that this was a bloody good understanding of Boffo: young Irena, a witch from exotic forn parts, with a heavy forn accent. People saw and heard that and reflected that if the witch was _that_ forn, her witching would be _better_. Stood to reason. Everybody knew foreign parts had powerful magic.

"You'll come back, loves?" Nanny asked. "There's always a need for assistant witches. You knows, to help out. You'll never get a Steading here but you're allus welcome." Granny Weatherwax nodded her agreement. Just once, but that was as good as a great big hug. Maybe better.

 _ **Prologue, part two. Some years before the present, Near Überwald**_.

A young girl of maybe nine or ten was playing in a snowy garden. She felt at home in the snow. To describe her: she has the sort of lanky frame that promises to be tall and athletic. Her hair, where it can be seen under the winter hat, is a very pale blonde. Her features are well-shaped and defined and promise to be interesting, if not attractive. Her eyes are the sort of pale blue that goes well with ice and snow. She has a quiet, serious, demeanour and a certain intensity.

She is making a snowman. The disregarded spade stands vertically upright in the snow nearby. She took it from her home, _das Herrenhaus_ , for the sake of appearances and to prevent awkward questions being asked. But she has no need of spade or shovel.

She focused, in the way that had suddenly arrived, nearly fully formed, in her mind and visualised a shape. She moved her hands, describing a shape and channelling the Force. The power moved and snow swirled. She frowned. What were the words again? Ah, ja…

She almost sang…

" _Lass es wachsen…"_

 _Let it grow, let it grow…_

And the snowman took form. The girl frowned critically and then, manually, added the obligatory two pieces of coal and the carrot.

She watched the winter birds in the sky for a second or two. That was another yearning… and then the snowman moved. It took a shaky step, and then another. And then it said

" _Danke_. Thanks, Hanna, love."

Hanna von Strafenburg, only daughter of the local Graf, was a lonely girl constrained by social rank and What Was Necessary. Girls in these circumstances might create imaginary friends to compensate for the lack. Hanna had discovered early that in the winter months, she had no need. And winter in Near Überwald set in early and lasted for longer. **(2)**

 **And in Lancre, in the present where Elves are attacking.**

Olga Romanoff led her strike force back to their base at Lancre Castle to land and recharge on magic. Her mind ran plans. She needed a standing patrol around the Dancers, just watching and observing for the expected major assault. There would be other people on the ground watching too, she knew. But any major assault by Elves might over-run them quickly. Air support would help them retreat and regroup, if necessary. Her fliers could run ground attacks to disrupt and blunt any attack. She smiled, grimly. The Air police had trained extensively in ground attack. Lord Vetinari had made it clear he preferred such training to take place well outside the City, but had asked, politely, about progress. Mr Vimes preferred not to know, but was well aware Olga and Irena took regular small parties of Air Witches out on long training runs as often, and as regularly, as they could. Hanna too, although she had not had the same active experience of these things, had a pleasing aptitude for the theory and performed extremely well in training.

Olga reflected on the fact only she and Irena had ever fired shots in anger, in a real battle. The Howondaland fighting. Irena had been fired on from the ground by a native Wizard; had the fireball been a few yards closer, it would have killed her and destroyed her Pegasus. As it was, a valuable mount had been slightly injured, the wing on one side scorched by fire, and had been out of action for a month to recover. Admittedly, the fighting impi to which that Wizard belonged had been utterly and conclusively destroyed in a pitched field battle a day or so later. Vetinari had made it clear the two events were directly causally linked, and governments around the Disc had taken notice. Nobody now tried to impede or injure a Pegasus. Nobody.

Olga herself had taken part in that battle, fighting from the air as she evacuated a messenger with an urgent request for help. She had flung down fireballs into the impi as it formed up to assault the defenders of the Tobacco Farm. Just to make the point. Attack a Pegasus, and you die. Apparently, jungle trees falling and blazing foliage dropping from above, as well as wooden shrapnel, had caused a lot of damage even before the enemy impi had charged. **(3)** And there were lots of trees in Lancre. Olga considered thousands of blazing pine needles, thrown with some force, hitting Elves. And smiled to herself.

Vetinari now absolutely forbade taking the rare and precious Pegasi into actual harm's way. Olga understood this **.** _I left four girls behind at the Air Station to tend and look after them. If we are here for any length of time, I can look for whoever here has had enough of the fight and send them back for rest. Then bring a reserve of fresh pilots here from Ankh-Morpork._

There was a mood of elation among her pilots at the success of their first fight. Six Elves down, no casualties on our side. Olga frowned. She knew the battle, the big battle, was unlikely to be so one-sided. But how could she tell raw new pilots this?

Olga landed, and passed her personal broomstick to a ground Teknik for recharging. She saw no senior ranks, but realised among the pilots she'd left in reserve that there was a mood of despondency, even sadness. Backed with anger and rage.

"Report." she said, brusquely, to the most senior pilot she found.

It was bad news. The worst. The second patrol she had sent out, under Nottie Garlick, had also run into Elves. A second air fight had taken place. The patrol had returned, one pilot short.

"Where is Officer Garlick now, please?"

"She went to speak to her mother and to Mistress Ogg, ma'am. About what happened. To get search parties out on the ground looking for… well, whatever they can find."

Olga understood this. You did not leave anybody behind. Even if they were… and the icy realisation of being in command hit her. She ran the numbers again. After conferring with Tiffany Aching, she had sent a patrol out towards the Chalk. Their intention was to run a standing patrol in the vicinity of the Standing Stones there. Also, Tiffany had said she wanted to get home, to the Chalk, to grab some sleep. She had indicated she could do this on her own and had no need of an escort, but thank you for offering. Olga had considered this, waited for Tiffany's old and slow broomstick to get a reasonable distance out, and had briefed Irena and Hanna. They had selected their wingmates, and four big powerful Air Watch brooms were out there, possibly a thousand feet above Tiffany, watching over her and discreetly keeping her safe. With luck, Tiffany would not notice. They would then patrol the Chalk. Olga decided that if the attack took place in the Chalk, she would detach enough flyers to make a difference and vector them there.

 _Dividing my command already. The strategy books say that's a fatal error for a commander._

But first…

Nottie returned. She looked grave and sad.

"Who was it?" Olga asked, in a low voice. Although she'd counted faces and had a good idea.

"Sigrid." Nottie said. Olga clasped her hand. They remembered a friend together.

"How did it happen?" Olga asked. "No. Wait. Call everyone together. Briefing. Reports. Let's do this in the open."

It had been worse than that. Sigrid Helgasdottir, a Witch from a frozen cold island someway off the coast of Hubsvenska, Nothingfjord and the Skaggeraks, one who had in her time taken the long journey to Lancre to learn more about the Craft and who had joined the Air Watch afterwards, had been killed in action. No doubt. Her wingmates had seen it. They'd avenged her and taken down seven Elves, but the fact remained they'd lost a comrade.

She had got detached in the fight and lost contact with the others. Then she'd been mobbed by two or three Elves. She had got one with a fireball and was dealing with another, and a third had leapt off his yarrow stalk and onto her broomstick, behind her. He had grabbed hold of her long unbound hair, her blonde hair (it was odd, Olga reflected later, how small, strictly speaking, irrelevant, details like this got into reports), pulled hard to jerk her hair back, and…

"He threw her body off the broom. Just like that." Olga said.

Several pilots nodded. One, Marina Raskova, was weeping.

"We know where she fell." Nottie said. "I was asking Mum if people on the ground there can find her. Bring her body back."

"We're on it, mistress." said a ground-level voice. Olga looked down; Wee Mad Arthur, one of the Feegle who served with them. "The word is out. The clans know. They will find her, and bring her home."

"Thank you." Olga said.

The elf had then stood up on the staff of the captured broomstick, taunting them, waving the bloody knife and expressing his intent to parade the captured broom as a trophy.

"Smug little bastard." Nottie said, bitterly. "Then Marina got him. I had to hold the fireball. She got up close and _personal."_

"Quick death?" Olga asked. Nottie nodded.

"He's dead, Olga. But we're not Elves."

"Did you retrieve the broom?" Olga asked. Watch technomancy getting into enemy hands…

"No. After Marina had finished with the Elf, it was a bit bashed up and smouldering. We gave it a mercy fireball and it crashed somewhere in the forest out near Bad Ass. Hell of a bang."

Olga refocused. She reflected on how Sigrid had died. Then an icy cold realisation hit her. She'd gone into her own close attack on an Elf with her long unbound red hair streaming behind her. A lot of witches with long hair enjoyed the sensation of flying unbound with their hair streaming behind in the slipstream… ice filled her. _That might have been me…_

"All ranks. I repeat, all ranks. Will as of this moment bind, tie, or otherwise secure their hair. How you do it is up to you. But there is to be NO unsecured hair showing from underneath your headwear. That is an order!"

She nodded to Nottie.

"Get this message, somehow, to Irena and her command in the Chalk. Give her the story of what happened here. Thank you."

Olga beckoned Tatiana Grigorenko. Who also favoured long unbound hair. They sat together, plaiting and securing each other's hair. It wasn't the sort of job you could easily do on your own. Witches were pairing off. It was the sort of thing that bonded you.

After a while, Olga called for a vodka bottle to be brought up from Stores, with glasses. The Air Witches drank to the memory of one of their own, an absent friend.

Olga went briefly up and out to the battlements of Lancre Castle, oriented herself, and looked out towards Bad Ass. She felt a tear form, and allowed it. Then realised she wasn't alone: Tatiana, Marina and Nadezhda had joined her. She indicated her acceptance of it. Then Nadezhda took up the song, in slow tempo. It echoed over Lancre Town. People who heard it realised, without understanding the words, that it was a lament.

 _На горе стоял казак. Он Богу молился,_

 _За свободу, за народ низко поклонился._

The song was an old one, that called for truth, justice, integrity of soul, a land where little birds could fly free and unafraid, and the vital need for the Rus people and specifically the Cossack nation to fight like Hell against anyone trying to take these things from you.

They felt better afterwards. Then went back inside.

"Right. Who's up for another flight?" Olga asked. " _V'put._ Let's go."

 _ **Lancre Town, a few years (less one) before we pick up from the end of last chapter.**_

"So you're back, then." Nanny Ogg said. She leant on the white-painted gate of her cottage and assessed the two travellers, who had returned, by horse this time, broomsticks strapped to the side of their saddles for quick use if needed. The strange foreign clothing had attracted attention: britches, high leather knee-boots, flowing baggy comfortable tunics, big comfortable black coats. It was exotic and outlandish for visitors to Lancre.

Nanny indicated the horses. Not big animals, but sturdy, barrel-chested, somewhat shaggy, and with the look of horses that could go all day if they had to.

"Not broomsticks, then?"

" _Nyet_ , Nanny." Olga said. "Irena still needed the practice."

The travellers had somehow grown and matured in a year and a bit away. Practicing witchcraft did that for a girl.

"Well, come on in, the both of you. I'll get the kettle on."

"We brought you a samovar, Nanny."

"What the heck's one of _those_?"

"You make tea in it."

Nanny grinned.

"Won't say "welcome home", as this ain't your home. But welcome back, anyhow."

Later on, Granny Weatherwax looked sourly disapproving.

"Well, at least them furry hats is black. But the _rest_ of it…"

Olga and Irena knew about Granny's attitude to witches in trousers. They kept respectfully silent as Nanny Ogg pointed out that they rides horses, Esme. Cossacks is _famous_ for it. Them clothes is right for horses. Cossack women in skirts riding sidesaddle wouldn't fit the image.

Granny grunted. Then pointed out the other thing.

" _Swords?_ What sort of a Witch wears a _sword_?" she demanded.

" _Sabre,_ Esme. There's probably a word for it, in their sort of foreign." Nanny said.

" _Shashka_." Irena said, helpfully. Olga considered the question Granny had posed.

"What sort of witch wears a shashka?" she repeated, rhetorically. Then answered it, with force, and strength, and conviction. "A _Cossack_ witch."

"Forn customs, Esme." Nanny said. "Different ways."

Granny looked hard at Olga for a few long silent seconds. Olga held her glare. Then Granny Weatherwax nodded. Olga, her point made, gratefully looked away and blinked first.

"Cossack witches." Granny repeated. "With swords. Well, it takes all sorts."

A week or two later. Commander Sir Samuel Vimes and his wife Lady Sybil Ramkin passed through Lancre. Through Granny and Nanny, they met Olga and Irena. Sam Vimes made them a job offer. They accepted it. **(4)**

 _ **The Chalk, at The Stones.**_

The prototype MIG-21 broomstick was designed for combat and high-speed aerobatics, not for routine patrolling. Hanna von Strafenburg was beginning to realise this as she settled into the routine of patrolling around, but very expressly not _across_ , the age-old stones of the Chalk.

Hanna set about the vital but boring patrol flight with diligence and a sense of duty, remembering to watch the skies above and behind her for _hostiles_ , all the time sensing that the MIG-21 was bridling, like a thoroughbred racehorse forced to pull a muck-cart. She set her shoulders and reminded herself of the dictum that had been drummed into her from earliest childhood. _Befehl ist Befehl._ Life is duty. _Alles in Ordnung._ Order is all.

Her mother had died young. Hanna recalled the funeral, people with un-naturally stony and unemotive faces. Even and especially her father, who as well as being Graf was an Army general. Showing emotion in public, especially at a funeral, was frowned upon if you belonged to the Junker class.

Hanna recalled trips into the town and country. It all belonged to Father. Everywhere she went, peasants, the _Landser_ , took off their hats and tugged their forelocks. Hanna thought this was all a bit demeaning. But Father said "Landser. Salt of the earth. Fine people. But still below us. They must remember their place. We are _Junkers_."

Father remarried. Hanna reflected that in defiance of the way the story should go, her stepmother had actually been quite _nice_ , or had tried to be in a chilly Junker sort of way, genuinely trying to at least get the acceptance of her new stepdaughter. Hanna had been willing enough to give it, but was crippled by not knowing _how._

Memories formed. Hanna kept her mind on the tedious monotony of the Duty, but her mind could not help but project memories. Whatever the Elf-woman had done to her head, the one Tiffany had said was at the moment some sort of conditional ally, seemed to have sparked all this off. The memories cascaded…

Father, on a home leave, with close comrades. Talking about how the town butcher had taken at least six strikes with his hammer to fell a stubborn bull.

"Damn creature must have been an Ivan. You can fill those brutes full of crossbow bolts and they're too stupid to fall over. _Untermensch_. Animals."

"That bull was probably still three times more intelligent than an Ivan, though."

Things like this stick in the mind of an impressionable young girl.

Hanna was beginning to wonder if a Junker was shorthand for "constipated oaf with an unjustified sense of their own exalted status, just because they can out a "von" in front of their family name."

As she could put a "von" in front of her own family name, this rebellious thought worried her.

And the magic was still growing in her. Her father thought this was a peasant-woman thing, beneath contempt. She had managed so far to keep it secret from him.

Hanna, in the present scanned the sky again. She took note of Emily Maitland, who was patrolling half a circle away from her, on the other side of the Stones. Something was growing in there, in the zone they had been ordered not to enter. She could feel it…

The young Hanna got a new governess. Education for one of her social status did not involve school attendance. Education came to her, one to one. Her new tutor was diligent enough in the things a minor noblewoman should learn. Morporkian because it was essential. Formal Quirmian because, well, the noble classes spoke Quirmian. Überwaldean was necessary for giving orders to the Landser. Among ourselves, with our own kind, of whatever nationality, we speak Quirmian. And things like classical Latatian. Also the social skills for a noblewoman: how to embroider, how to prepare light social snacks and drinks.

But Hanna's tutor had been to the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies and had some progressive ideas concerning the shape of a girl's education **.(5)** These had included basic chemistry, or at least the theory. When Father wasn't around, she moved the curriculum to this sort of area.

"Prussic Acid?" Hanna had said, puzzled. "We live in Prussica. Was it invented here?"

Her tutor had smiled, wryly.

"No. This is a dangerous acid which doesn't burn as savagely or as intensely as, say, nitric or sulphuric. However, it poisons people in a horrible suffocating strangling sort of way. The Quirmian chemist who discovered it chose to name it after our own dear Prussican region of Überwald. I understand he was making a point here."

Hanna had felt secure in asking her tutor about the magic. The tutor had gone silent for a worryingly long time.

"Yes. I believe I know people who know people. We who went to Quirm have, shall we say, a network. Ladies Who Organise. I will ask. Miss Perspicasia Tick is an alumna of our school, and she understands more than I do concerning young Witches. This may take a little time."

In the present, Hanna von Strafenburg made herself focus on her current mission. Again. She felt her broom buck impatiently **.(6)**

 _But I made it to Lancre eventually. Circumstance, and Miss Tick, helped._

* * *

And out in Lancre, near Bad Ass, an encounter of a different sort was happening.

MISS SIGRID HELGASDOTTIR, FORMER WITCH?

The shade of Sigrid Helgasdottir turned from the wreck of her earthly body. She had a recollection of the exultation of downing an Elf and then of a few moments of sickening terror and pain, and the foul feral smell of the thing. She'd also somehow heard a distant song, in Far Überwaldean. People were lamenting her. She looked Death full in the skull.

"Oh, it's you." she said. "You took your time, didn't you?"

Sigrid indicated the blue cord.

"Come on. Get cracking." she said, impatiently.

I APOLOGISE. IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I NEEDED TO CONTACT A PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUE WHO HAS AN INTEREST HERE.

Sigrid folded her spectral arms, and realised Death wasn't alone. The man – entity – with him was big and bluff and hearty. He had red hair with a matching beard and moustache and sideburns. Sigrid also took in the uniform, a sort of slate bluey-grey. Definitely military, definitely higher rank, with silver braiding and rank badges on the cuffs and epaulettes that went a long way up the arm and seemed to consist of wide silver-grey rings.

"Hello, m'dear." War said. "Got to say I'm enormously impressed with you."

"So you're War." Sigrid said. "You know, in my country War is an old-time warrior on skis with only one hand? Says that doesn't matter, as he can still swing a sword?"

"Oh, _Tyr_." War said. "Well, I could if you insist, but you died fighting in the air. That's a new thing on the Disc. You're the _first_ , d'you see? Had to be here to meet you."

AND, ALAS, NOT THE LAST.

"Indeed, Mort."War turned back to Sigrid. "I like to tailor my service to the person, to make it bespoke, d'y'see. The thing is, the idea of an Air Force is still evolving on this world. It doesn't have a specific uniform, as such. So I had to borrow the look from a nearby universe. Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force. That's had a good eighty years to build a reputation, and m' professional peer on that world, well, she recommended I adapt the uniform. What d'you think?"

"Lots of silver braid." Sigrid said. "Very impressive. Look, I'm kind of ready to go, if you don't mind?" She paused, and added, with satisfcation "At least I took one of them with me."

Death looked at her.

ACTUALLY, YOU TOOK NINE.

Sigrid blinked. She asked how, exactly? And - are you sure?

I _AM_ EXPECTED TO KEEP A CAREFUL COUNT, YOU KNOW. YOUR TALLY IS NINE ELVES. YOUR BROOMSTICK WAS FATALLY HIT IN THE ENGAGEMENT. YOU WERE PROBABLY NOT AWARE OF IT, BUT AFTER YOU WERE KILLED IT SPIRALLED DOWN TO EARTH WHERE THE CHARGED MAGICAL FIELD EXPLODED IN A DISPLAY OF UNCONTROLLABLE EXOTHAUMIC ENERGY. THE ELVES IT LANDED ON WERE VERY BRIEFLY SURPRISED. EIGHT OF THEM, TO BE PRECISE.

sigrid took this in and grinned. In the distance, she heard a " _Ho-yo-Hey-to_ ", getting nearer.

"You're from a small country that was colonised by adventurers from places like Nothingfjord." War explained. "You have barbarian heroine in your ancestry. You died fighting with your right hand on the hilt of a weapon. You tick all the boxes."

The Valkyrie landed.

"One for Valhalla, sir?" she said. War nodded. Death's scythe flashed.

The spirit of Sigrid Helgasdottir brightened up. She nodded to War and Death, and vaulted into the saddle of the Valkyrie's horse, pushing her out of the way.

"Shift over. _I'm_ driving. _You're_ the pillion." she said. "Hey, I always wanted to fly one of these!"

The Valkyrie made an outraged face to War and Death.

"Sir, is she _allowed_ to do this?"

War looked sternly at her.

"Well. She is now. Just give her directions. Roll with it."

And Sigrid Helgasdottir, from a small cold Island in a Hubwards ocean, went, singing, to her Afterlife.

The war continued in the world she had left.

Olga Romanoff left precise standing orders to her fliers, dictating who was going to relieve the standing patrol over – around – the Dancers in two hours. New reports came in of sporadic encounters with the elves. Olga stood down those of her fliers who were not due to go on patrols, and insisted they _slept_ , as she was going to do. Ans that she wanted people who were refreshed and awake in the morning, if not earlier.

Nottie Garlick apologetically said – and saluted! - that she had sent a Clacks message to the Chalk, care of Tiffany Aching, knowing Miss Aching will pass it on to Sergeant Politek as soon as she can. Communicating your orders, ma'am, concerning hair. And also that Sigrid – Nottie hesitated – is missing in action. Sergeant Politek is to contact you, personally, soonest, for updates.

" _Horoscho."_ Olga said, approving of Nottie's actions, but noting that ma'amdom had been conferred on her, along with salutes – the Air Watch hardly bothered with them, usually - and that things were all of a sudden getting uncomfortably _military_ around here.

Then she wrapped herself in blankets and sought sleep. Her last memory was of the white cat that had suddenly got into the room. She wondered if others were seeing it too. It stared at Olga with uncomfortably human intelligence.

 _You are going to lose people. This is inevitable. Listen to me, Olga. Do the job that is in front of you, and do it well. The alternative_ _is worse._

Olga thought the words had come from inside her own head. It couldn't have been the cat. Couldn't possibly. Sleep came surprisingly easily. Olga decided not to argue with this and sank into oblivion. Until she was shaken awake, an unguessable time later…

 _ **More will follow…. Including air combat, owing something to Derek Robinson and WE Johns.**_

* * *

(1) In one of the Tiffany Aching books, the one with the Hiver, there is mention of aviation-minded Witches putting on an Air Display on broomsticks, stunt-flying and trailing multicoloured smoke in the manner of the Red Arrows. Apart from hinting these witches were from the same training coven as Tiffany, nobody is named. It would be fitting if this were to be two eoptic foreign witches from Far Überwald…

 **(2)** Although it's tempting, I'll try to keep the _Frozen_ gags to a bare minimum. Hanna did get on well with Ilsa, daughter of the estate farrier, who had a sort of brown-red hair and what Hanna thought of as an irritatingly perky and up-beat personality. But she won't be mentioned in this tale. Hanna and her Snowman might feature in a _Frozen_ parody, though… I've had to sit through that bloody thing with nieces who think it's the Greatest Film Ever and Disney deserves a kicking for this. And another for the sequel.

 **(3)** Again, my tale _**Bungle in the Jungle.**_

 **(4)** Now go to the tale _**When André Got His Badge Back**_.

 **(5)** Father had flatly refused to send her to this wonderful place, where girls lived and worked together. Apparently Hanna would be mixing with the wrong social classes. Gods know, the Quirm Academy even took in Ivankas these days. Hanna had pleaded, seeing this as a way out of crippling social isolation. But there had been no moving Father.

 **(6)** The MIG-21 was a prototype broomstick. Only one, so far, had been made and Hanna was riding it. It was in many ways a new and untried device. But Hanna had test-flown it and knew what _she_ could make it do. What made it unique was that effectively it was not so much a broomstick as a flying crossbow with a seat on it. It also had a staff that bifurcated. This made the rear end look strange, with two parallel sets of bristles giving it twice the usual sort of power and thrust. What made it controversial is that the hollow staff contained something that was, as Sam Vimes had observed, dangerously near to a one-shotte crossbow. Only scaled up and capable of repeating fire. The body contained an immensely powerful spring, a repeating mechanism, and twenty-five heavy-duty bolts. Hanna had fired it, clandestinely, on a makeshift range out in the hills near Chirm. She had learnt to compensate for the recoil that almost stopped her dead in the air. Sam Vimes had said to Olga Romanoff – "I'll pretend you _don't_ have that thing in the hangar, so long as you only use it in earnest _if there is absolutely no alternative_.And definitely _not_ for normal police work. Are we understood, Olga?" For the look of the thing, the design now incorporated two residual stubby limbs and risers, which doubled as stabilising fins in all-out flight.


	5. Flight of The Few

_**The Price of Flight – part five**_

 _ **Eagle Day. And Hawk Day. And Falcon Day. And Angry Pigeon Day. Followed by Owl Night.**_

 _ **V0.4. corrections made, or first batch of. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space.**_

 _ **We're back… following on from the end of the prior chapter, but first, more backstory. Then a darker turn as the Battle of Lancre happens in the air. Adding backstory to fill in the gaps about several characters who are growing in my tales. I'm also getting very definite vibes about Hanna von Strafenburg and how to develop this character and round her out. Especially how a Discworld "German" interacts with Discworld "Russians".**_

The air war did not end just because Olga had insisted most of her pilots stand down and snatch some sleep and rest. Other fliers had travelled out with her. Many of the broomsticks leaving Ankh-Morpork had also carried perching birds, some hoodwinked, some covered to spare them from the day. Their own Feegle pilots had travelled with them. Insofar as these things can be discerned, the birds had appreciated flying as passengers. Most of the daytime birds were asleep about Lancre Castle. Hodgesaaargh, the Royal Falconer, had wondered, but not for very long, why his own avian population appeared to have doubled.

Their Feegle pilots had in the main dispersed to carry messages across what would afterwards be referred to as The Feegle Clacks. They would be back in time for morning and more active duty.

But some birds were out and about. With pilots.

An unwary Elf was out, scouting the moonlit landscape for entertainment. He didn't' see the swooping owl until it was upon him. He heard the triumphant hooting call and the voice that said "Hey. Jimmy. Have a facefu' o' _beak_!"

Shortly afterwards, a beak-and-talon-savaged Elf, separated from his yarrow stalk, plummeted to earth in Lancre.

A Feegle patted the neck plumage of his Howondalandian Eagle Owl, a creature that had seen something like a large rodent, and followed its biological imperative. Elves do not normally grow to any spectacular height **.(1)** A fully grown Eagle Owl has a wingspan of getting on for five feet. From the elf's briefly experienced point of view, it was like having a feathered meat-mincer thrown in his face.

The Howondalandian Eagle Owl spat out something it found distasteful. Its Feegle rider provided a strip of better-tasting meat.

"Guid lassie, Johanna!" the pilot-Feegle said. "But forbye, leave one for me!"

The Air Watch now had three Eagle Owls, all female. They were named Johanna **(2),** Alice and Joan. And all were lethal and deadly when unleashed.

* * *

Dreams are fragile and elusive things. They are so often forgotten when waking up naturally in the morning, elusive strands and themes and ghosts of a larger whole that vanish in the mists of waking life.

Wake somebody up un-naturally, on the other hand, say by shaking them awake, and the vivid memory persists for longer. As Olga Romanoff raced to the dispersal area where the Tekniks had racked their brooms against a wall for fast collection and take-off, she remembered the white cat and the message _Do the job that is in front of you. Do not weaken._ She also remembered, vividly, the other dream. When a magic user dreams, it can be more than a dream. Part of you is in a different reality.

"You think Witches and Shamen is different, girl? You look at them out in the forest shambling around in them reindeer furs and things, saying "Far out, man!" and "Groovy!", and thinking you ain't got nothing in common?"

Old Babiuschka Natalia had reclined back in her rocking chair out on the isba's step, contemplated her evening vodka, and said to her two pupils

"They walks the dreamworld all the time. Granted it takes a lot of mushrooms and herbs to do it. We just gets to go there in dreams when we gets our heads down at the end of the day. Same thing. Same place, usually."

Natalia had studied her two pupils. Then grinned.

"When I was younger and out on the Steppe with the Cossacks, and you'll go there too, you'll see more of 'em. The men is…" Natalia made a dismissive "pfft" noise and waved her hand. "There's women shamen too. They're more effective. And as damn close to Witches as you'll get, anywhere!"

 _Good. Sometime during the night the Tekniks have secured nameboards behind the brooms to say whose is whose. So we can grab our own broom at the run and be in the air soonest._

Olga grabbed the broom under the card saying O.A.E. Романоф. (Лейтенант). The other dream came back as a memory:

OLGA ANASTACIA EKATARINYAVICHNYA ROMANOFF?

"Oh, It's you."

She glared at Death. He prompted her.

THE NEXT QUESTION IS USUALLY "WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW?"

Olga nodded.

"So what do you want now? I know you are not here for me, because I would _know_. I did not receive the usual advance warning."

Olga frowned and wondered why her mind wasn't working as sharply as it usually did. She noted Death nodding meaningfully at her.

HOLD THAT THOUGHT.

Olga found her mind slipping away again. She realised she was dreaming. Or else in that other world which had its own reality, the one a Shaman tried to enter by brute force and lots of drugs.

Death looked, insofar as a seven foot skeleton can look, sympathetic.

PERHAPS I AM HERE TO ASSURE YOU THAT SIGRID HELGASDOTTIR HAS PASSED TO A BETTER PLACE, ALL PAIN AND SUFFERING HAS CEASED AND THAT SHE IS HAPPY IN HER NEW HOME AND SENDS YOU HER LOVE FROM BEYOND THE VEIL.

Olga was suddenly angry.

"If that was a joke, it was in bloody bad taste!"

I APOLOGISE. DAMN, IT IS SO HARD TO COMMUNICATE WITH SLEEPING PEOPLE. BUT, OLGA, ALL YOUR COMMAND ARE WITCHES. YOU ARE A WITCH. ASK YOURSELF WHAT HAPPENS TO A MAGIC USER SHORTLY BEFORE THEY DIE. SPEAK, PERHAPS, TO ESMERELDA MARGARET NOTE SPELLING. TALK TO YOUR WITCHES.

Death nodded to her, and half turned to go. Olga noted the white cat again, who was doing the cat thing of rubbing herself against his shin bones.

YOU ARE GOING TO KEEP ME BUSY HERE FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS. NOW I HAVE TO GIVE SUCH ATTENTION AS IS NECESSARY TO SOME OF YOUR ELVEN VISITORS. THEY DO POSSESS SOMETHING LIKE, BUT NOT QUITE, A SOUL. AND THEY HAVE DIED IN MY JURISDICTION.

Death looked at her again. It was not unkindly.

WIN YOUR WAR, OLGA. I PREFER A WORLD WITH HUMANS IN IT. OH, AND SIGRID TOOK NINE ELVES WITH HER, IN A ROUNDABOUT WAY. YOU WILL DISCOVER MORE LATER.

And now Olga was in the air. The larger part of her was scanning, watching, spotting, for the enemy. A smaller part was contemplating her conversation with Death, filtered through the slow fug of a dreaming mind. What had he meant? Talk to Nottie… HOLD THAT THOUGHT….

 _ **Lancre, some years previously.**_

"That was _tight_ , Esme!" Nanny Ogg protested, as they walked away from the old man's cottage in the late afternoon.

Granny Weatherwax did something that might have been a shrug.

"Happen it was, Gytha. Happen it was."

They walked on together. Nanny stirred, restlessly.

"We'll soon see if that young girl's got what it takes. To be a Witch. Only way, Gytha."

Nanny walked along in a protesting silence. Reluctantly, she accepted Esme might have a good point…

"But she got here, Esme. From Überwald. Same way them two came from out of Überwald a few year ago. On her own two feet. Granted, Perspicacia Tick set her on the road. But she's _committed_ , Esme. Like young Olga and Irena were."

Silence. Nanny filled it.

"Olga and Irena come out right. Devils and buggers for flyin', mind. They was committed to bein' Witches, too."

Granny Weatherwax gave a short curt nod.

"But committed to _what sort_ of bein' a Witch, Gytha? The girl's nobility, for one thing."

"Yes, so was Olga Romanoff." Gytha Ogg protested. "Bit of a reality shock for her. I means, she had to run to keep up, to find out how the rest of us lives. Longer distance, for her, as she was startin' from so much further away. But she got the idea. We flushed all the nobby stuff out of that girl."

Granny considered this. Then said "We needs to find out. I wants to know if this one is too posh to wash, for one thing."

Granny paused. She made a little derisory noise.

" _Yunkers_. Hah!"

A few hours later they returned. The girl, a tall blonde with broader athletic shoulders, looked deadbeat. But she was tending the patient still. The bedroom was spick. The patient lay in clean fresh sheets. The patient was clean. Which for somebody who had had uncontrollable Djelibeybi Fever, the Pharoah's Vengeance, was remarkable. Djelibeybi Fever was not pleasant for those called upon to nurse the patient. Especially solo.

And the girl herself looked – dishevelled would be kind. Granny nodded a grudging appreciation, noting her hands, arms and crucially her fingers were clean. She understood the essential things.

"I apologise for my unkempt state." the girl said, in her punctiliously exact Morporkian. "but I believe Mr Rogers is out of danger and is on his way to good health. I have sought to keep him clean and his sick bed is correct and clean. _Alles in Ordnung, Grossmutter_ Weatherwax!"

"She's a bloody wonder, Mrs Ogg." the old man in the bed said. "Bit reserved, like, and can't have been pleasant for her, but she put her back out. No word of complaint."

Granny and Nanny looked at each other.

"I reckon she'll do, Esme." Nanny said.

Granny Weatherwax regarded Hanna von Strafenburg, aged fifteen and apprentice Witch.

"We'll carry on here, I thinks." she said.

She gave Hanna a brief and almost imperceptible nod. It might have been missed if you weren't looking for it.

"Your clothes is fil.. well, needs smarten' up – and you needs a hot bath, for one thing."

"Nip back to the cottage, Hanna, love." Nanny said, kindly. "One of the girls can run hot water for you. Tell 'em I said for 'em to."

* * *

GRAND TRUNKS++TURNWISE OCEAN REGION(LANCRE)

O/TOWER; LANCRE TOWN

D/TOWER: ANKH-MORPORK CITY WATCH PS/YD, FAO SIR SAMUEL VIMES

C/C – PP/AM FAO HIS GRACE LORD VETINARI, PATRICIAN.

LANCRE, DATE:

WITH GREAT SORROW AND REGRET HAVE TO INFORM YOU OF THE DEATH IN ACTION IN THE SKIES OVER LANCRE OF THE FOLLOWING PERSONNEL

WITCH AIR POLICE CONSTABLE SIGRID HELGASDOTTIR

WITCH AIR POLICE CONSTABLE JENNIFER GRALOCK

WOUNDED IN COMBAT AND CURRENTLY UNFIT FOR ACTIVE DUTY. IT IS EXPECTED THAT SHE WILL MAKE A FULL RECOVERY.

WITCH AIR POLICE CONSTABLE VIRGINIA HEARTSEASE.

STATUS OF UNIT: WE ARE IN COMBAT OVER LANCRE WITH GROUPS OF THE ENEMY WHO HAVE MADE THEIR WAY INTO THIS WORLD. PATROLS FLYING CONSTANTLY AND ENGAGING THE ENEMY IN COMBAT. OUR CURRENT TALLY IS THIRTY-SEVEN OF THE ENEMY CLAIMED IN AERIAL COMBAT AND AN AS YET UNSPECIFIED NUMBER DESTROYED IN GROUND ATTACK. FRIENDS ON THE GROUND ARE CONFIRMING OUR ATTACKS WHERE POSSIBLE AND AN ESTIMATION IS AT LEAST FIFTY DESTROYED ON THE GROUND.

MAIN ATTACK IS ANTICIPATED SOON. FOUR BROOMSTICKS DESTROYED DUE TO ENEMY ACTION AND WRITTEN OFF FROM STORES. WE HAVE, FOR NOW, SUFFICENT REPLACEMENTS.

I HAVE DETACHED SERGEANT I. Y. POLITEK AND A SMALL FORCE TO THE CHALK. WE REMAIN IN TOUCH AND SO FAR NO CONTACT HAS BEEN MADE WITH THE ENEMY THERE.

WE ARE SUFFICIENT FOR STORES AND SUPPORT. OUR WOUNDED PERSON IS COMFORTABLE AND BEING CARED FOR. AS WPC GRALOCK WAS A LOCAL LANCRE GIRL, I WILL FULFIL THE DUTY OF INFORMING HER FAMILY OF HER DEATH. I WILL SEEK TO CONTACT THE FAMILY OF WPC HELGASDOTTIR WHEN I CAN. REQUEST, IF A-M HAS AN EMBASSY OR LEGATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE ISLAND, THAT THEY ARE INFORMED.

IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, SEND AN IGOR OR IGORINA AS THIS IS NOT A BLOODLESS WAR.

MORALE IS HIGH AND WE ARE FIGHTING AND WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT.

O.A.E. ROMANOFF, LIEUTENANT COMMANDING.

Sam Vimes put down the clacks with a deep sigh. He pushed the flimsy over to Angua von Überwald.

"Sigrid. She travelled a long way from home." he observed. Vimes was thinking – Widows and Orphans. "Did she have any dependents? Anyone special to her? Apart from the other airwomen, I mean."

"Kept to herself. Tidy girl. no local family. Her friends were all in the Air Watch. I don't think there was any sort of Understanding with anyone." Angua said. "Makes it tidier." .

"Does her country have an Embassy of any sort?" Vimes asked. He wished he paid more attention to these small details.

"Don't think so, sir. One of those Hublandish places where people still wear helmets with horns in. Remote. Hard to get to. Maybe two or three centuries behind in some respects. I believe they have a Cod Fisheries Delegation and a specialised knitwear shop, which is as near as it's going to get. Oh, and a creamery making interesting yoghurts."

Vimes nodded. He decided to get to the palace. With no great rush. Going now would save time.

 _ **Over Lancre.**_

Ground observers had seen the yarrow stalks rising over the Dancers. News had gone back to the Castle via the fast-moving Feegle Clacks. Wee Mad Arthur had accepted the Duty of waking Lady Olga by repeatedly and restrainedly kicking her in the small of the back and shaking her shoulder. (but respectfully).

"They're coming, Mistress." he had said to her. "Fifty were counted, ootwith the Dancers."

"Horoscho." Olga replied. "And nineteen of us."

"Ach, weel. They're ootnumbered, then."

Olga pushed the vivid dreams out of her head. And scrambled the squadron. Ten minutes later, flying in echelons of three, they were airborne. Olga had ordered six flyers remained on call as a reserve. The six witches nominated had grumbled, but obeyed orders.

It was the drill they'd decided on, after long practice. Three trios, nominally commanded by the best and most senior flyer. Olga herself was one of four: for convenience and because they could use Rus as a common language, she was with Marina, Nadezhda and Tatiana. Olga wished Irena was here to make it five. She wondered how things were over the Chalk and decided to clacks a request for a sitrep. As they gained height, there was a moment of unease – how safe were the clacks? Would it occur to Elves to break the clacks line, or to intercept messages? Olga considered this. No, she thought, they'd be more likely to destroy the towers out of destructive malice, and not ask what the towers were _for_. I can send messages in clear. I hope.

Height mattered. The air witches had worked this out in those long sessions of mock-combat and play-dogfighting. Get above the enemy and you have advantage. And while you could never have too much height, you had to balance it against practical things. Go too high, you ran out of air. They'd discovered that in training. It caused problems. And here, nearer the Hub, you also had to bear in mind that if you tried to go higher than Cori Celesti, you got Gods who got uneasy about mortals looking down from above. It hadn't happened yet and Olga thought she could deal with that if it did. Possibly.

She judged six thousand would be about right; there was a good hunter's moon up there, and it was illuminating things in a pleasing way. Her command dodged around clouds of varying thicknesses and over the Lancre landscape below, which gloomed. While some scanned the skies above and around, just in case, others watched below for signs of things moving. As Witches, they were sensitive to disturbances in the Octarine. Any sort of magically powered flight showed up as octarine discharge. Olga knew her own pilots would be glowing, to the right sort of mind. Ponder Stibbons and HEX, the university's thinking machine, had once demonstrated to her how her pilots left a glowing green trail on an omniscope screen. **(3)** Ponder – such a clever, clever, man! – had speculated a suitably prepared omniscope superimposed over a map could be used as an early-warning detection screen, to alert a Ground Controller that the airspace over Ankh-Morpork was being intruded upon. _Errr. You could, I don't know, sort of scramble up a response then, Olga, and you'd know exactly where to send it. Errr._

Olga could see uses for that sort of technomancy. But for now, the detection technology was Human Eyeball Mark One, backed by witch senses.

They flew on. Elves would be flying low and fast. But we have height.

 _Some Wizards are not stupid. Some are quite clever. They would not be a liability._

Olga had absolutely resisted the idea of flying Wizards in the air Service. Sam Vimes had backed her up. A very firm _Nyet!_ had been sent to the University. Men with magic whose first response to flight would be "how fast can it go and what's the biggest possible fireball it can carry? Hey, if we drop this on a city it can make a big hole!" were not what the Air Police wanted. Although, as she had pointed out to Vimes, _"sometimes_ , fireballs." She was not opposed to fireballs. Not at all. The trick was, knowing when to use them and that ninety five per cent of the time, they were not an appropriate response.

Olga contemplated the remaining five percent of the time. She grinned. Tatiana Grigorenko grinned back at her.

Then, below, there were octarine ripples in the air, invisible to anyone except a magic user. She knew she hadn't spotted them first. But Witches in other echelons were signalling. Olga reckoned the first Witch to make visual contact on the enemy had been Kiiiki Pekkisaalen. That figured **.(4)** Rus pilots could go higher and were less affected by cold. Kiiki could go higher still and stay there longer. She was a natural sniper: any Witch figuring she was as high as anything could possibly go, and who didn't bother looking up or behind her, soon had Kiiki on her tail, coming down from where she had been patiently waiting, higher still. A high-altitude sniper, a lone wolf.

Unable to make contact other than with hand-signals and shouting, Olga lifted herself up on her broom, unsheathed her sabre, raised it, and pointed it down. Towards the large octarine disturbance that suggested a lot of air movement down there, several thousand feet below.

"V _'put_!" she shouted. _Let's go._

 _ **Pork Scratching, Lancre. Years previously.**_

Petulia Gristle, an older witch who had married a pig farmer, was used to a succession of apprentice Witches each getting a year of Work Experience in her Steading. A lot of it revolved around farm animals, especially pigs. The girls soon knuckled down, recognising pig-work was by its nature dirty. Petulia had probably the best bathroom in Lancre, for one thing. She had a standing account with a cosmetics company in Ankh-Morpork and received regular large parcels of scented bathroom essentials. She even had a novelty for Lancre, a boiler room that pumped lots of reliable heating and hot water around the house. This also fired a very good laundry room for clothing. Some things are essentials.

Her girls did the mucky jobs uncomplainingly. It was the price they paid for a good long luxurious soak. Getting them to pitch in with pigs was never a problem. But today she had the opposite problem…

The pig byre, currently unoccupied, had never looked cleaner. You could even see the stones and the cobbles. They looked scrubbed.

Conversely, the apprentice Witch doing the cleaning had inevitably managed to transfer a lot of the grime, and other things, to herself. She was still scrubbing at a stubborn patch, with grim determination.

Petulia tried not to be nervous. There was something about this apprentice. Tall, blonde, with those icy-cold blue eyes. Petulia had the feeling she was dealing with a higher-functioning Annagramma Hawkins, but one who was actually _good_ as a Witch. And she felt, like the younger Petulia being bullied by Annagramma, as if she should shrivel inside, meekly take it, allow the uncertain shy and hesitant inner Petulia to emerge, in the presence of cold commanding competence who was born to rule and had a right to rule.

Petulia shook herself. Those were just bad memories. This one was perfectly nice inside. You just should look behind the surface impression.

"Hanna." She said, kindly and reasonably. "Hanna. Listen to me. Errr. You don't have to take it _this_ far. This is more than good enough for the pigs. Err."

Her pupil, Hanna von Strafenburg, looked up at her. Petulia caught a glimpse of something behind the cold ice-blue eyes. It looked like vulnerability, desperation.

"I mean. Err. You never shirk from the dirty work. Even when you don't need to do it. Errr. Why?"

Hanna took her time in replying.

"Because they think. "She is too posh to wash. Too haughty to be dirty. She is some sort of Duchess or something. She is too good for us. Not one of us.""

Hanna indicated the dirt on her working clothes. A smell rose. Essence of pig.

"I want… to fit in. To be among people. And to be one of them."

Petulia recognised the desperation.

"I know, love." she said. "You want a place where you can belong. Everybody does." Petulia paused. "Right now, your place is a really hot bath. Leave your clothes in the usual place for laundering? I'll get you a drink. We can talk."

Hanna walked away with immense dignity. Petulia shook her head, wondering what sort of awful life the Überwaldean nobility had given to one of its daughters.

* * *

Lord Vetinati turned the despatch between his fingers. He looked thoughtful and replaced it on the desk.

"I would begin by speaking to Hagrid Grimismondsson at the fish docks." he remarked. "He can at least provide a home address and directions. Island is a small country. Everybody knows everyone else. And when normality resumes, Lieutenant Romanoff then knows where to travel to. By Pegasus."

Vimes did not reply.

"Pronounced _Ice-Land_." Vetinari remarked. "A language congruent with Old Nothingfjordian possibly a thousand years ago. Many points of congruence with Morporkian. Isolated and fossilised. Many people make the mistake of speaking the name as it is written in Morporkian. It _is_ an island, of course. But more than that."

Vetinari paused.

"A hardy people. Of course, descended from great barbarian fighters, adventurers and heroes of old. And, of course, heroines."

There was a pause in the Oblong Office. Vetinari looked over to his Watch commander, sternly.

"Deaths are regrettable, Vimes." he said. "And of course every dead person is a life truncated, children never born, a life never lived, a grieving family. But this is, regrettably, a _war_. Against a vicious, alien, hostile, foe who delight in cruelty and destruction. They have invaded our world. They are…" Vetinari paused. He steepled his fingers.

"If the Battle of Lancre ends badly, Vimes, a Battle of Ankh-Morpork will commence. Better we defeat them, conclusively, in Lancre. Or else all we have known and cared for will end up inexorably sliding into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister by the non-light of a perverted people."

Vetinari paused. Then he seemed to shrug off whatever had settled on him. It looked as if he was about to say more. Vimes fought off a sudden perverse urge to offer the Patrician a cigar.

"There will be casualties, Vimes. Steel yourself for them. Lieutenant Romanoff will gain new and able recruits to train. Who knows, even now a witch fighting in the ground war, in the mud and cold, will be looking up, seeing fellow Witches fighting in the air, maybe catching sight of the air war, and she will think – _I want to be part of that_. The gaps will be filled and the ranks, who knows, will be extended. Her new recruits will be taught by seniors with practical, invaluable, experience of air warfare. Now if you excuse me, I have an appointment with the Klatchian Ambassador. His country has experience of entities called djinns. He will wish to be – thoroughly - briefed concerning our Air Arm's progress in the skies over Lancre."

* * *

The elves over Lancre were flying in a mass. They had heard there were Witches in the air fighting them. On those old, slow, laughable, broomsticks. No match for us. But we can have fun killing them when they try.

Then they heard the song from somewhere nearby. It was punctuated by high, shrill, "hup!" and "yip" noises, like farmers herding animals. Song captivates Elves, Even if they don't know the words. And a woman's voice, solo, was singing. They made what would turn out to be an error. And slowed down to listen. The song grew nearer It was punctuated by the repeated word that sounded like "Kazack!"

Then the Night Witches burst out of their cover in the cloudbank and hit them. The Elves looked into the eyes of the women fighting them. And very briefly got a sense of what the word "Kazack" _mean_ t.

The war-cries were loud and carried. " _Ya Kazack_!" alternated with "Sigrid!" There was no doubt the women up there were angry and seeking revenge. On the ground, people marshalling for an earthly combat heard them. They looked up and saw the mushrooming fireballs above and heard the explosions.

Nanny Ogg saw one particularly large fiery ball split into trails of flaming debris plummeting to earth.

"Well." she said, to nobody in particular. "We'll be pickin' bits of elf out the ground for a _long_ time to come!"

She didn't touch iron. No point, as they were on their way regardless.

Olga Romanoff estimated the first mad vengeful rush had killed at least twenty elves. At least one each. But they were getting over their surprise now and they still outnumbered her fliers by at least two to one.

Olga scowled. Numbers. What of them? She unsheathed her sabre, knowing it was best to conserve her fireballs. Practical experimentation had established you could only throw so many before the magic depleted. She considered the pistol crossbow at her right thigh that Irena had obtained, on loan, from a friend. She wasn't sure if she could fire more than one shot; it needed to be reloaded, and she suspected air combat allowed no leisure to reload. But she still manoeuvred into range of an Elf, one intent on getting close up to Maggie Bracewell. He was so intent on getting her that he simply did not notice Olga. And the crossbow bolt came as a brief surprise to him.

Olga frowned, noticing the elf had been holding a flaming torch. It pinwheeled in fiery circles across the sky. What was the point of _that?_ They could see in the dark… she watched the body plummet, and reholstered the black-enamelled crossbow. It had served.

" _Watch your back!"_ she shouted at Maggie, swerving past and banking. You did not fly a straight course in a fight.

The battle had degenerated into a series of individual fights. Olga noted a couple more elves plumetting as flaming ruins, and approved. She also fretted at the possibility they would run out of ammunition soon.

Then a heavy weight landed on her back, causing the broomstick to buck and leap. Olga felt the knife grating at her back and sensed puzzlement on the part of the stabber. She felt the choking arm around her throat and gagged at the feral stink.

Then she recentred and balled her left fist, using her elbow as a pivot and smashing it into what felt like the face of her attacker. She felt the splintering of bone and cartilage and the gush of blood. The arm around her neck slackened, she could breathe again, but it did not let go. Oga didn't even think. She twisted in her seat, her left hand groping for her waist.

The Elf briefly stiffened as the short _kijndal_ dagger, the companion piece to the _shaksha_ sabre, went through him. His numbed arms flew wide.

"You ripped my tunic, _brat_." she said, coldly. "For that, you _die_."

Then she pushed the dying Elf into space, taking care to retrieve the dagger. All the Rus fliers were wearing Cossack tunics and fur caps. The four had agreed that was fitting. They were Kazack, riding into battle. They should _know_ who kills them. Courtesy.

But they were also Watchwomen. Watch-issue breast and back plates were being worn under the tunics. Olga suspected there was now a dent and a scratch in hers.

She heard a voice from the past, somewhere inside her head.

"What sort of Witch carries a sword, anyway?"

She saluted the memory. And shouted into the sky

"A Cossack witch!"

She suspected, at the edge of hearing, a voice laughed and said

"A good answer."

Olga saluted the sky.

"May your soul have mercy on the Gods."

The fighting was petering out now. Surviving Elves were running for it. And there were not many. Olga raised her sword over her head and swung it in a circle, then back towards her. It meant "Regroup on me".

Then she sighed. There had to be a _better_ way of communicating in the air. Perhaps Ponder Stibbons was working on one. When she returned the borrowed crossbow to Johanna, with thanks, she'd ask him.

Olga felt a cooler rush of air than she anticipated and reached up to pat her head.

Govno.

In the fight with the elf, her fur cap had gone. She sighed, philosophically. She could always get another one. Even if the one she had lost had been the one the Vulga Cossacks had presented her with, to mark her acceptance into the Horde after a year of training.

However, there was a bigger issue to deal with. Conferring with Marisa and Nottie, she realised that three broomsticks had been seen to catch fire and veer out of control during the air battle.

"Who have we lost?" Olga asked. Marina indicated broomsticks where two witches were to be seen riding pillion.

"We were alert. We saved people."

" _Horoscho._ We have reserve brooms." Olga said. "For now, brooms with rescued pilots. Back to the air station. They will also require cover…"

Then the elves launched a raid of their own. Olga, wondering if the brooms had simply been overloaded with too much magic whilst charging and had simply caught fire, and making a note to ask the tekniks about this, realised what the fiery torches some Elves had been carrying were for.

One of them, in a the brief flurry of fighting, latched onto Jenny Gralock. Engaged in duelling another elf, she simply did not notice the second flying alongside and setting fire to her bristles, which caught quickly.

Jenny very soon found herself on an uncontrollable broomstick that was flying erratically and running out of power. She might have waited to be picked up and taken pillion. But Jenny was a local Lancre girl. And she was one of the witches who had opted to take a parachute with her. She tipped off her broom, rolled, and a couple of seconds later there was the white bloom of an opening chute, These had come a long way since Leonard of Quirm's first design. The Air Watch favoured a lightweight device that fitted into the smallest possible space **.(5)**

"Her decision. She knows the ground locally. She can find friends, and return to us by ground." Olga said.

Nottie, hovering nearby, agreed.

"Hope that broom lands on top of some Elves when it blows." she said.

"We can only hope." Olga agreed, watching the dying broom staggering towards the ground with all the precision of a firework rocket.

And then the elves found her.

Jenny, in her parachute, retaliated with whatever fireballs were left to her, but the outcome was inevitable. Elven arrows. Quite a few of them, even as Air Witches were streaking in, just too late.

Olga felt appalled. She felt, in her heart of hearts, that whatever happened in the air, a pilot who baled out of a stricken broom and who was clearly taking no further part in the battle was safe, Inviolable. She felt this in her soul. Olga would not have used the word "war crime". But some things resonate in the soul.

"Kill them." she said. "Kill the bastards. No mercy."

In the following fight, Ginny Heartsease received close-combat injuries from an Elf armed with a stone club. Kiiiki Pekkisaalen, her deadly Swommi combat knife flashing, had rescued her and carried an unconscious comrade back over her broom.

And on the flight back to Base, Olga suddenly realised what Death had tried to explain to her in the dream.

 _I went into battle because I knew I was not going to die. Because I had not had Advance Notice, which is the privilege of magic-us_ ers.

Olga tried to remember if this only happened in the event of natural death – some people thought that if your coming death was to be a violent or un-natural one, you did not get the Warning. She decided not to rely on this as a guarantee she would not be killed. As Assassins put it, that could be called _over-confident_.

But Sigrid seemed distant and preoccupied in the last week, Olga reflected. _What if she knew? And Jenny_?

Olga called a crew meeting when everyone had landed. There were things to discuss.

GRAND TRUNKS++THE CHALK AND OCTARINE GRASS COUNTRY)

O/TOWER; SHEEPRIDGE

D/TOWER:LANCRE TOWN

HI OLGA.

WE MAINTAIN A PATROLLING ROUTINE HERE WHICH AT THE MOMENT IS HARD TO DO WITH FOUR OF US. A COUPLE OF YOUNGER WITCHES WHO CAN FLY ARE HELPING OUT AND I AM PAIRING EACH ONE WITH ONE OF OUR FLIERS. THEY HAVE APTITUDE AND ARE RECEIVING SICH TRAINING AS WE CAN GIVE. SUGGEST WE CONSIDER THEM AS RECRUITS AFTERWARDS. TIFFANY THINKS SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO BLOW HERE – SO FAR NO ACTION. IT IS COMING. REQUEST MORE PERSONNEL AND SEND A CARPET WITH SUPPORT STORES AND A TEKNIK. LOTS MORE OF THE SPECIAL AMMO FOR HANNA. YOU KNOW HER STICK EATS IT AT VAST RATES. I GRIEVE FOR SIGRID. I HOPE SHE IS THE ONLY ONE.

REPEAT, QUIET HERE. FOR NOW. YOU HAVE SEEN ACTION?

IRENA Y. POLITEK (RELUCTANT SERGEANT, COMMANDING SHEEPRIDGE DETACHMENT)

 _ **More to come… the girls learn a little more with every fight. Flashbacks to Ankh-Morpork. And the war begins over the Chalk.**_

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 _The kindjal, or kindal;_ the shorter sword or dagger, depending on length, which is used by Cossacks as a sort of auxiliary weapon to the _shaksha_ , or else as a sidearm: like the _shaksha_ , it has no cross-guard and the pommel might be ornamented with a stylised animal head depending on region or Host.

 **(1)** African Eagle Owls can grow big – although most African Owl species are not much bigger than their European cousins, the apex predator has a wingspan of over 4'6" (1 metre 35). Night flying Feegle have tamed all sizes, but guess which end of the scale they like most…

 **(2)** To my story _**Whys and Weres**_ in which Johanna the night-stalking killer gets her name. The Watch Feegle stuck with the same idea for the other two birds, normally used for night-vision patrols. Their riders knew to let them take the odd rabbit, rat or small rodent during a patrol, and stopped for necessary meal-breaks. Tonight the three silent, lethal night hunters weren't just observing. They were _hunting._

 **(3)** Olga, invited to the High Energy Magic building to watch the experiment, who had instructed three pilots to fly a steady trail over the City where HEX could detect them, had watched appreciatively, her mind assessing the possibilities, as the green line swept the omniscope screen like a fast-moving watch hand, picking out the moving green blur as it got closer and larger, then, as it passed over the University, receding and fading. "Errr.. it's not very precise yet." Ponder had said, apologetically. "And still a prototype. We can't yet tell how many there are and we can only approximately guess at what height. But the octarine ray picks them up and plots them. Errr…"

Olga had wanted to hug him. She forced herself to remain, outwardly, impassive. It was expected of her.

"The ray. Da." she had said.

 **(4)** Kiiki was a witch from the Swommi country who had also made the long trek to Lancre. She wasn't slow to point out, whenever Cossack sentiments emerged, who exactly had won the centuries-ago Winter War and prevented their land being absorbed into the Rus Empire. "We'll give you that." Nadezhda had replied, taking no offence. "But had Cossacks been there, it would have been _different."_

"Cossacks." Kiiki had said, dismissively. " _Perkkele._ You don't have mobility when those horses are balls-deep in a snowdrift. You can't put horses on skis."

 **(5)** Parachutes were optional. Olga did not insist on this. Many pilots thought they were a bulky un-necessary impediment. It was left to the individual.


	6. first blood over the Chalk

_**The Price of Flight – part six**_

 _ **Meanwhile, over the Chalk…**_

 _ **V0.2. Slight revisions. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space. Bit quick and very first draft – but keeping the momentum. Revision will follow!**_

 _ **We're back… following on from the end of the prior chapter, with more backstory. Irena's war, this time. The war in Lancre after the passing of Granny Weatherwax is set possibly nine years before the Air Watch we see in chapters one and two - backstory to the proud history of what will become the 588 Girls. ( I can see how they get the number... it has significance in our world too...)  
**_

* * *

 _ **Prologue: a week or two earlier, in Ankh-Morpork.**_

Irena Politek was appreciating a night off-duty, with no Pegasus runs, no Watch duties, and no need to cover in the Watch Steading, something she and Olga had agreed was vitally necessary. Doing the normal, unglamorous, everyday work as a witch grounded them, even if it was only for one or two sessions a week. _"Never forget we are witches."_ Olga had said. Irena agreed with her. Even though, as the Air Watch grew, there were more witches to share the Duty with. The Air Police had a rota for this and a Steading surgery in a lower room at the Yard, where any member of the wider City Watch family could consult a Duty Witch. You know, for the usual sorts of things **. (1)**

Tonight was different. Dinner with an old friend and time spent, precious time, as part of a family. Irena appreciated this. She spent time with her Godsdaughter until it was time for the little girl, and her rather lively younger sister, to be put to bed. Then she accepted a vodka refill from the attentive butler. The adults appreciated the child-free silence and the space to talk about things best not raised in front of the children. Irena nodded to the door, and the receding sound of nanny and children.

"You're going to have your work cut out with that little one." she observed. The little one's mother nodded, wearily.

" _Ja._ But you are not her Godsmother." the mother replied. " _You_ get the bigger one."

Irena smiled, contentedly.

"She's going to be one of us, Johanna." she remarked, in a "resistance-is-futile" tone of voice. "Every time I see her. It's there and it's getting stronger. _Witch_."

Johanna Smith-Rhodes winced and changed the subject.

"Lencre." she said, after a while. It wasn't just a question.

" _Da. Lancre_." Irena replied. There was a reflective silence. Irena contemplated her vodka, then touched the hilt of her sword. The pommel terminated in a large stylised eagle's head. Johanna's younger daughter had been fascinated by it and had kept reaching for it, even trying to draw it from the scabbard. For a girl not even three, this had been incongruous **.(2)**

"It is dangerous, Johanna. Granny Weatherwax is gone, may her soul have mercy on the Gods. Also, we hear, and this is _pravda_ , that the Queen of the Elves is dethroned."

Irena part-drew her sword and touched the blade. She thoughtfully ran the ball of her thumb against the edge.

"So the woman who was greatest of witches is gone from Lancre. Not all Witches accept Tiffany Aching is her chosen heir. At the same time there is a new lord in the fairy realm. Who hates us. We have _instability_."

"Dangerous." Johanna agreed. She came from a border country that often became _unstable_. When armies crossed in either direction it got _very_ unstable. "Do you believe they will invade?"

" _Da."_ Irena said, unhesitatingly. "And in force."

"End you are going there. When they do. To fight."

Irena nodded. Johanna recognised quiet determination.

" _Da._ Olga and I are making plans. We do not know how long the war will last. We have discussed this with Queen Magrat. She has made space in the Castle for a forward and secure Air Station. I'm sure the Dark Council has noticed we have been sending stores and supplies to Lancre."

"It hes been noted, ja. So the whole of the Air Watch?"

"Will be taking a grandmother's funeral." Irena agreed.

Irena sipped the vodka thoughtfully.

"We know, and this we nearly disbelieved as rumour, that the ex-Queen was cast into our world. Tiffany Aching has given her sanctuary and asylum. This sounds amazing, but is _pravda_. Truth. Mistress Weatherwax once said el… _they_ … are too stupid to learn. Mistress Aching, I wonder, is thinking differently, trying to _teach_ an Elf. Who may return as Queen of her people, but with different ideas. Meanwhile the lord who deposed her has an incentive to invade. One who could still return and take vengeance on him when her strength returns is in Lancre, for one thing. Also, his hatred for humans. There is going to be a war."

Johanna considered this. She decided to be equally frank. Although the news the ex-Queen had been given what amounted to political asylum in Lancre was new to her. It would be new to the Dark Council too.

"So. You are going to fight."

" _Da_. Have you noticed Witches from Ankh-Morpork and the Shires and the Sto Plains have been making their way to Lancre in recent weeks? We all trained there. We all have a regard for the place. We all despise El… _them_. We will fight."

"Wish I could go." Johanna said, ruefully. Irena smiled tolerantly.

"Knowing we would fight side by side again would be heartening. But you are a mother now. You have other considerations."

"Not only thet." Johanna said. "Vetinari."

She explained that the Assassins' Guild had been flatly and absolutely forbidden to send anyone to Lancre if hostilities broke out. _No_ paid contracts, _no_ pro bono, _no_ freelancing. Vetinari had made it abundantly clear. Vetinari, she said, thought that if he sent overt military help to Lancre, or even covert Assassin help, it could offend Witches, who might interpret this as the Patrician considering that they couldn't sort out their own affairs without outside help. That he didn't think they were up to it.

"However. Lancre-trained witches. In the service of Ankh-Morpork. Given indefinite leave from our duties here." Irena remarked.

Johanna nodded. "Squares the circle." she remarked.

"Incidentally. Do you not have a man in Lancre? Is he forbidden from fighting too?" asked Irena.

Johanna grinned. " _Ag_. He's over sixty. Roger Forbishley, however, is a local Lencre man. If he wants to fight in defence of his country, insofar es he can, thet's e _ccepted._ But he'll be the only one of us in this war."

The two smiled, old friends. It came as a surprise to the older men who had power in Ankh-Morpork, locked in old rivalries and power struggles and alpha-male battling between their Guilds and factions, that younger women who were rising in prominence had different ideas and readily co-operated. People like Johanna Smith-Rhodes, Angua von Überwald, Steffi Gibbet and Irena Politek didn't give a stuff that they belonged to the Assassins' Guild, the City Watch, the Thieves' Guild or the Air Watch. They all went to the same hairdresser, for one thing **(3).** And, crucially, when you've covered each other's backs in some vicious fights, that sort of thing engendered _trust_. Johanna and Irena had been together in the desperate fighting at the Tobacco Farm. Irena was Godsmother to Johanna's oldest daughter.

"Weapons." Johanna said, practically. "I know you use megic. I've _seen_ you use megic. End some of those combet broomsticks you people are building. Ag, man. But I'm betting thet combet fighting means you hev to mix it up end close. Even in the air."

She nodded to Irena's Cossack sabre. And the matching _kindjal_ battle-knife.

"You've got your own. Olga's got her Cossack weapons too. You earned them. But most of your girls get the crep from the Wetch armoury. You need close in-weapons. For when the other fellow gets so close thet you cennot use megic eny more."

Irena nodded.

"That thought occurs to me, too." she said, seriously. "Old rusty blunt swords and those crossbows you suspect are one shot away from firing backwards. Dead weight, in the air. And cumbersome. We leave them on the ground."

Johanna indicated her weapons walls. They were extensive.

"Pistol crossbows." she said. "Small. Light. Compact. Hitting power. Swiftly recocked end reloaded. I regret I only have four. But with sufficient reloads."

"We have twenty-eight witches." Irena said.

Johanna nodded.

"Essessins cennot go to this fight." she said. "However, our _weapons_ can."

Johanna called for one of the house goblins. She dictated a clacks. She then sent one of her maids to run messages to Emmanuelle and Davinia who were her immediate neighbours, and to the young Assassins who rented a shared house at Number Four, down the street.

After a while, Irena had sufficent pistol crossbows, ammunition and holsters. Together with short swords and daggers for close-in fighting.

"What if any get lost or damaged?" she asked, practically. Miss Alice Band, who had replied to the call, patted her on the shoulder.

"Well. If you lose the crossbow, I'm just betting you'll have lost the pilot, too." she said, practically. Irena winced. "if that happens, giving you a bill for a replacement might be _ungrateful_. As well as insensitive."

"You are a _sergeant_ , _chere amie_." Emmanuelle Lapoignard remarked. "Sergeants are expected to be providers for their troops, who go outside the usual channels of supply to provide. You have provided. You are worthy of those three stripes."

"We'll cover the loss for any you can't bring back. Just. You know. Bring yourself back. Bekki needs her other Godsmother."

Alice Band nodded at Johanna and smiled, pleasantly.

"You know. The _witchy_ one."

 _ **The Chalk, in the present moment.**_

Sergeant Irena Politek tried not to seem impatient and frustrated. Mr Joe Aching, recognising the importance of the Clacks messages, had brought the first ones over himself rather than wake his daughter. He had frowned at the fact the Air Witches had set up a makeshift base in an old barn.

"Mrs Aching wouldn't like it either, ma'am." He had said. "Why not set up at Home Farm? We can at least see you get fed."

Irena had objected that it might make him a target for Elf attacks. He had smiled, wryly.

"And my Tiffany isn't? Besides, you're nearer the Clacks tower there."

The detachment had moved base. Further clacks messages went back and forth, couriered by Clacks goblins. The girls had made themselves comfortable. Irena had tried to keep them occupied as the news of the fighting in Lancre and the two deaths in combat had come in. mourning and grief had happened, but flying was still going on.

Morning had come, and no Elves. Irena reckoned the odds. She and her three fliers, all Olga had been able to spare, were a tripwire, there to slow and impede any elf attack and to get news out. She just wished they'd attack, so her small command could do something.

And, in the morning, there was…

….a hopeful Dwarf with a covered large square-shaped something on a barrow.

" _Alsjeblieft,_ _meisje_." The Dwarf said, uncertainly. "Errr… apologies, miss. A moment of your time?"

Irena frowned. The language sounded vaguely familiar, but the _accent_ wasn't what she'd have expected from somebody who spoke like that. She wondered which human ethnicity he had lived amongst.

"Yes, what is it?" she said, trying not to be too curt.

"Errr… you're the ladies who fly? The air witches?" he asked. Irena nodded.

The Dwarf smiled.

"I, well, broomsticks interest me. Watching them. Working hard what makes them go. I heard you are always interested in new ideas. I designed and built one. What do you think?"

"Okay…" Irena said, interested despite herself.

The Dwarf beamed and uncovered his wagon. Irena blinked.

It _looked_ like three broomsticks. Three staffs, anyway. But held together with lateral struts. And all feeding into the same, extra-wide, single bundle of bristles.

"The pilot sits on the middle staff, ma'am." the Dwarf said, earnestly. "And it looks different. But I was thinking. Staff generates and shapes and condenses the magic. The bristles direct the thrust. And I heard you had one with one staff and two sets of bristles. I thought – why not three staffs? Three times the magical capacity?"

" _Da,_ but not much more thrust and speed. Therefore, endurance." Irena observed. She added "Looks bloody dangerous. Not been test-flown yet?"

"No, ma'am. That's what the local witches said, ma'am. About it being bloody dangerous. So I thought. Them Air Watch witches from Ankh-Morpork. I knew you was here."

"It's dangerous. It needs a test-flight." Irena contemplated the New Broom.

"HANNA! Come over here a minute, would you?" Irena thought, and added "Bring a parachute."

The new model broom wasn't especially fast. But Hanna von Strafenburg reported that it was powerful, it was stable, you could turn it on an elim, and it was amazingly manoeuvrable. "I recommend we accept it for further test flights."

Irena nodded to the Dwarf.

"Any good at technomancy?" she demanded. "I need a Teknik."

The Dwarf beamed.

"Oh. And what's your name?"

"Anton van Fokker, ma'am." The Dwarf said, with an expression that was daring her to smile. "from the van Fokker clan of Sto Kerrig."

"From a long line of Fokkers." Irena mused. Some lines are not to be resisted.

She nodded to the Fokker Tribroom. Strange, unique – and serviceable.

"I'll introduce you to Olga – Lieutenant Romanoff." she said. "Just be our Teknik and you've got a job. Accepted?"

Later on in the morning, Irena got her next operational headache.

The two young witches had been hovering for some time, clearly nervous to approach but reluctant to go away. Irena observed them: fifteen or sixteen, in painfully new pointy hats and each with a broomstick. _Hmmm_.

Eventually she walked over and made a perfunctory Witch bow.

"Yes?" she invited them. The two girls looked painfully nervous. They Witch-bowed back. Irena looked out of the corner of her eye at something; she half-glimpses somebody of about Tiffany Aching's height and build, who seemed to be inobtrusively observing. Irena reflected that if somebody like Tiffany wanted to be unseen, Irena wouldn't even have caught a passing glimpse. Therefore, Tiffany _wanted_ to be seen. Irena held that thought.

She stood back, and looked at the girls.

"Well?" she asked.

The older of the two girls swallowed, nervously.

"Please, ma'am, we want to fly with you…" she said, in a tiny voice.

Irena scowled slightly.

"First thing. It isn't "ma'am", it's _sergeant_. Three stripes. Count them. And secondly. You do not sound sure. You also said "please."

Irena frowned.

"You say you want to be Air Witches. Well. I want the sort of girl who is _sure_ of what she wants. And I want the sort of girl who knows she wants to be an Air Witch. Therefore she does not say "please" as if she is begging a favour. She says "I CAN FLY. I WANT TO BE AN AIR WITCH!" And she says it as if she _means_ it. Now. Again!"

The girl swallowed.

"I CAN FLY. I WANT TO BE AN AIR WITCH!"

The voice was high-pitched and a little shrill, but Irena looked behind it into the girl's eyes and registered the want and the need and the desire. She thought it was like looking into a mirror. She smiled.

"Good, but you missed out one thing." Irena observed.

"what was that, ma'a…. Sergeant?"

Irena stepped forwards and eyeballed the girl.

"You just got it. The _Sergeant_ part."

Irena noted the MiG-21 was sitting in neutral outside the barn. She looked at the two girls whose eyes radiated covetuous desire. She smiled. Hunger to fly. Useful.

"Lance-corporal von Strafenburg!" she shouted.

Hanna, who had realised the game that was being played, did her best parade march, then stamped to attention.

"What does the flight-commander desire?" she asked.

"Lance-corporal, we have two fledglings. You are to take them up for a flight – on a standard model broom, in your case – and we will assess what they are good at."

She nodded to the two girls.

"Your flight assessment begins _now_." she said. "You have brooms. Fly them." She nodded, and shouted: _"_ _Bystro! Bystro! pereyekhat'!"_

The potential recruits looked at each other. The tall blonde corporal glared at them.

"You will discover that means to go fast and at the double." she said. "When Sergeant Politek shouts " _Bystro_!", you _move_. And if I shout " _Schnell_!", you move _faster_. IN THE AIR! SCHNELL!"

 _ **The Patrican's Palace, Ankh-Morpork. Some weeks earlier.**_

Lord Vetinari steepled his fingers. He regarded Commander Vimes and Lord Downey.

"Do you know, My Lord." he said to Downey, in a pleasant voice, "I'm almost certain I gave strict instructions that the Guild of Assassins should not, under any circumstances, become directly involved in the current instability in Lancre."

"We are adhering strictly to the letter of your memo, My Lord." Downey replied, smoothly. Vetinari raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. My information is that Doctor Smith-Rhodes is, at this very moment, leading her regular class in the practical use of the pistol crossbow. I understand she has marksman status in this weapon and under her instruction, poor shots become indifferent, indifferent shots become good and good shots become outstanding. Her class of student Assassins is at this very moment augmented with a detachment of Air Policewomen, I see."

Vimes grinned at Downey's discomfort, then sat up. _Wait a minute…._ He was sure he hadn't sanctioned this _._

"And Madame Comptesse de Lapoignard is teaching a theory class in Bladed Weapons. I understand she has asked for a consignment of weapons normally considered too dangerous to be put on public display in the Dark Museum, and her class are being familiarised with them. Her class, on this occasion, _also_ includes a rather mature component of Air Policewomen, I am given to understand."

Downey and Vimes winced together. The Patrician smiled what might have been an understanding smile.

"So long as there is no _direct_ Assassin participation in any fighting." he said. "I consider it very public-spirited that you are opening your classes to interested members of the public, Lord Downey. And commendable, Vimes, that you are open-minded enough to allow your personnel to receive a degree of possibly life-saving tuition from the Guild of Assassins. Commendable."

Downey and Vimes shared a look. For once, they shared a sentiment almost exactly.

 _You_ get people like Johanna Smith-Rhodes and Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées. _I've_ got Olga Romanoff and Irena Politek. Amazing how they can side-step us, isn't it? In ways which are not quite insubordinate, or which involve a flagrant breach of orders. If you still drank, Commander Vimes, I would offer you a great big drink. And I'm sure if I smoked, you would offer me a cigar.

* * *

Matilda Glossop, aged fifteen, shook all over as she got off her stick. She'd heaved up twice while she was in the air. She flushed with the shame of it. The Air Watch wouldn't want her, now she'd disgraced herself, she was sure. And from the stiff-legged way Bethany Hargreaves was walking, she must have wet herself…

The blonde Corporal had been ruthless. Her terse orders had been to follow my moves. Do as I do. Do not fail. I am observing. The Sergeant is watching from the ground. You are being assessed. There is no room for failure. You may find there is no reward for failure but _death_. Watch me, keep in the glidepath, some of the manoeuvres may make you faint, do not allow yourselves to be lost. **(4)**

She had then led them through some hair-raising and frankly impossible-looking twists, turns and stunts. Matilda had faithfully tried to follow, and had been thankful she had been hanging upside-down in a corkscrew manoeuvre when her abused stomach had given in. It had been both exhilarating and excruciatingly unspeakable at the same time. And now they were conferring. The frightening icy-cold corporal and the more dapper, shorter woman sergeant with the slightly exotic foreign look. The one who, inexplicably, wore ribbons in her single long, impeccably braided, ponytail. _Pink_ ribbons.

And now the sergeant was walking over in an intense, unhurried, way. The girls waited, miserably, for the inevitable "you are wasting our time here. Whatever made you think you had what it takes? Go."

But the sergeant looked them over, a half-smile on her intelligent and somewhat unconventionally attractive face. Mathilda noted the high cheekbones and the slightly slanted eyes, suggesting something Agatean in her ancestry.

"You threw up." she said, frankly. Matilda nodded, miserably.

"And _you_ wet yourself." Bethany nodded, even more miserably.

"But you kept up. You followed Hanna's lead. You only failed because those bloody broomsticks let you down. Not up to the job. The broomsticks failed. The _pilots_ did not."

The sergeant laughed.

"Are you ashamed for vomiting and wetting yourselves? _Govno!_ I've seen worse. And when I did some of those spins and turns for the first time, people on the ground wondered why it was raining puke!"

Irena paused, adding after reflection

"And, very nearly, _real_ govno."

"They are fit, Sergeant." the blonde sergeant said. "We can make pilots out of them."

Irena Politek nodded. She extended a hand.

"Welcome to the Air Force." she said. Then she frowned.

"They fly like cows, mind you."

Hanna noted the shocked looks.

"Those _broomsticks_ fly like cows. Not _you_." she clarified.

" _Da. Yaks_." Irena agreed.

A _Yak_ was Air Witch slang for the standard everyday witch's broomstick. Slow, old, bovine and cumbersome.

Irena turned to the new Teknik.

"Mr van Fokker? While our new fledglings are cleaning themselves up, can you do anything with their brooms? Tune them up a bit?" she asked.

The Teknik saluted and smiled happily.

"Clean up, get the worst of it out of those clothes, ideally find britches or trousers to wear, and when time allows I'll get you sworn in."

Two or three hours later, their air war began. Irena led six, not four, pilots into battle.

Matilda Glossop would remember it for the rest of her life. Sergeant Politek had gone to talk to Mr Aching, the farmer, and Mr Aching had shown her a large pile of the usual sort of farm waste he intended to make a bonfire of. They had come to an agreement, she remembered.

"Bonfire. "Sergeant Irena had said, laconically. "What's missing?"

"Err… it's not on fire?" Bethany had replied. Sergeant Irena had nodded.

"Well done. Well observed. Now. _Light it_."

Bethany and Mathilda had looked at each other.

"Your best fireballs, ladies! In your own time, but this side of tomorrow would be nice!"

Fireballs had followed. Sergeant Irena had expressed dismay at the slow, small and lukewarm quality of them and had demanded better. And had then shown what was expected in terms of quality and firepower. It had been an education. The girls blinked away the afterimages.

* * *

It had been Irena's luck that when the scramble came, she had been up for a spin on the Tribroom. You know. Just out of curiosity. To see how it handled. She had seen the red rockets going up in the near distance. The distress flares every Clacks tower had for tricky moments like this. She also knew there'd be an automated emergency message going out along the Trunk with details of location, personnel involved and approximate nature of the emergency. She looked down and frantically signalled for Hanna and the two new girls to get airborne. She circled and carried on frantically signalling. She fervently hoped the recruits would get through it alive. She'd given them – she winced – one hour of flying time and an hour and a half of theory. Not nearly enough.

Then her standing patrol came racing back, from the turnwise. They were being pursued. Irena counted the dots in the sky: twelve hostiles. She saw Darleen O'Halloran turn in her place and shoot a fireball.

 _Okay. Eleven now. But for now just the three of us. And I'm on an untried combat broom. I don't even know if it's good for combat_.

"Report!" she shouted, as Darleen drew level.

"Irena, what sort of a bastard is THAT bastard?"

"New broom. Hope it sweeps clean."

Darleen shrugged. They shouted a conversation from five yards away, brooms hovering in place

"Bastards are attacking the Clacks tower." she said, laconically. "Came out of the Stones. We got a few fireballs in among the bastards. Since there's a lot of the bastards, we got out faster than macarena nuts through a dingo with Djelibeybi Fever. Few less of them now!"

"Okay. How many?"

"Reckon fifty of the drongo bastards in the air. Hundred or so on the ground."

"Okay. Listen. Six of us now. But two are new girls. Keep them close and out of trouble, if you can."

Darleen nodded. She saw the other Witches getting airborne. Felt and sensed the roar of the Mig-21 taking off. It was not a stealth broom by any means.

"Ah-huh. Wipe noses and arses. I know the drill."

"Good. Let's kill some Elves."

Three broomsticks formed a rough line in the air. And charged. Irena steered mr van Fokker's Tribroom, still getting to know her new mount. It wasn't the fastest. But it could manoeuvre. That suited her right now.

Three against twelve pays off. Twelve get in each other's way. Three can manoeuvre. Irena sensed two Elves converging on her. She waited for just the right moment, knowing this had to be right. No second chance. Then she made an abrupt vertical climbing turn, surprising herself with how quick and clean and suddenly fast it was, with less than half the usual turning circle.

She saw the two Elves, racing at full speed to take her, suddenly collide as their target disappeared. It was only a glancing collision; but one was thrown right off the yarrow stalk and pinwheeled across the sky, arms flailing. The second elf went out of control and spun. Irena grinned and gave him no chance to right himself. Sudden fire blazed in the sky over the Chalk.

She saw the Clacks tower in the distance. Airborne elves were trying to get onto the platform. People inside were fighting back with whatever came to hand. On the ground, others were milling around, trying to climb up, while others were bringing fiery torches. Irena frowned. They had to do something. But _first, the ones in the sky…_

" _Stay close, you dozy wombats!"_ Darleen yelled at the two new girls.

"Just sometimes, I wonder if I _should_ have gone back to Wolamalloo to work on the sheep stations after I got the training in Lancre." she thought, as she lined up the next Elf. "or joined that new thing back home, The Flying Witch and Igor Service…"

" _The bastards are coming thick and fast. No let up. You shoot down one, two more appear…"_

Darleen looked over to where Sally Treadaway was zooming into firing range of a new target. Darleen saw the Elves getting into line behind her and realised she was faced with one of _those_ choices. Get the bastards off Sally's back – which meant dumping the raw meat, the new recruits. Already other Elves were sniffing their nervousness…suddenly, she was spared having to make the decision.

What felt like a hurricane-force wind and an ear-grinding noise whipped past and dopplered into the distance. She heard the noise, twice, sounding like a lead ball rolled down a tunnel, speeded up a hundredfold, and magnified in eardrum-buggering intensity.

And it was as if a quadrant of the sky had been swept clean of Elves…

In the distance, a receding dot, one that had created a hell of a disturbance in its wake, turned, deceptively slowly at this distance, and started to grow again.

 _That's the problem with something that goes so fast. Takes a hell of a lot of distance to get it to even think about turning._

Elves were fighting to get out of its way. Darleen looked round her. Never stop searching the sky. One of the new girls seemed locked into an endless turning circle with an Elf, both fighting for the edge that would allow one to get behind the other. The second one was throwing her broom around the sky, either in very clever manoeuvres to put six or seven Elves off their aim, or else out of sheer novice inexperience and inability to properly fly the bastard. Darleen sighed and steered for this battle. _Wipe noses and arses. Babysitting._

It also got her out of the way of the MiG-21. That bloody crazy bastard bitch dingo-queen drongo Überwaldean., Hanna. Laced up tighter than a duck-billed platypus's arsehole on the ground, stone crazy in the air.

She noted Sally, and Irena on that insane looking triple-broom, getting out of the way fast, trailing and chasing Elves.

And then the roar came again.

Darleen had leisure to watch this time; she appreciated the way the MiG-21 almost stopped in the air every time Hanna fired that big fucking cannon, understood the pilot had to be strapped in else she'd go right over the bastard front, and tipped the metaphorical bush hat with the corks on the brim to her as she nudged the nose of the battle-broom a degree to the left. Big bang, one more Elf. Nudge. Bang. Third elf. Nudge, Bang. Fourth Elf.

Then suddenly, hardly any more Elves in the sky. They'd either died or run. Which only left the ones on the ground attacking the Clacks…

Irena signalled down with her sabre. The others understood. Ground attack.

Darleen noted the elf in the vicious circle was closing in behind the new girl, the faster aircraft winning. She swore luridly and steered to get the bastard. Then to her surprise, as the elf closed, the new girl turned, saw the danger, and launched a vicious kick. It caught the elf, who was trying to close from behind and below, right in the side of the head. Stunned, his knife went one way and he went the other. But was still astride his yarrow stalk. Darleen was about to shout _"For Offler's sake, finish the bastard off!"_

The girl took a nervous deep breath, steeled herself, extended an arm – and lobbed a fireball. Darleen noted she closed her eyes as she did so. But it was close enough and hot enough. It did the job. She noted the other new girl was getting the script, and fireballing too. Not hitting anything very much – she needed range practice – but fighting. It was at least warning them off. Darleen entered the fight.

And over there… Irena and Sally swooped down. Low-level ground attack. They'd practiced often enough. A valley in remote Chirm, where they practiced, still had the scars and gouges.

A closepacked body of Elves caught the lot. But there was a lot of them. Irena and Sally banked and climbed for a second run.

Darleen saw Irena reach out an arm and check sally from a second run.

Then she saw, heard and felt the reason.

Hanna came in from seriously low level this time. And went straight through the elves, with what Darleen eloquently described as that fuck-off-great-cannon blasting them. The sound of a voice screaming _"Fur dem Seig! Heil!_ came up to them. You didn't need a translation.

And then it was over. Suddenly, there were no more elves. No living ones, anyway. Six combat witches regrouped by the clacks tower, finding a spot on the ground relatively free from debris and dead Elves. . The senior Clacksman put down the hammer he'd been fighting with and grinned at them. The resident goblins clustered around Hanna and her combat broom, in awe of what they'd just seen. Hanna looked, for the first time Darleen could recall in bloody ages, happy. The goblins were chittering excited questions at her and she was answering. The two recruit pilots thrown in at the deep end looked stunned and traumatised and shaky, but, as Darleen pointed out forcefully, you're bloody well alive!

Irena nodded to them.

"You survived. You got a kill each. You're Air Witches. When you get to meet Lieutenant Romanoff, she'll swear you in."

And they suddenly looked happier. Tired and scared, but happier.

"That's if you live, obviously." Irena added, as a postscript. The girls suddenly stopped smiling. She was about to say more, and the clacksman called her.

"You're Sergeant Politek? I've got clackses for you!"

 _ **To be continued…**_

* * *

 **(1)** Witch support was seen as vital Watch work. Sam Vimes, recognising this, made it paid time. Olga and Irena made a point of paying their shift earnings into Widows and Orphans. It was a point of honour that a witch working as a witch did not accept cash for her services. Anything else, yes. But not cash.

 **(2)** " _Nyet_ , Famke." Irena had sad, kindly but firmly, adding "Listen to me, _'chushka_. You will hear the words "not until you are older" a lot as you grow, and this will frustrate you. But be assured, your mother will teach you about weapons. I _know_ she will. But. Not yet. What I say is _pravda_. Truth."

 **(3)** Barbarian Heroine (retired) Conina Haresbut – Cohensdaughter, who now ran a salon for professional women who led _interesting_ eventful lives.

 **(4)** Thank you to reader Ansela Jonla who suggested Sabatons "Night Witches" as a soundtrack. Haven't forgotten. Yes, I am working in references to one of the other great heavy metal songs about air combat here, Blue Öyster Cult's _**Me-262.**_

 _ **Vetinari on the Clacks from Morpork, says, girls, you've done quite a job! Vimes is on the Clacks from P-Yard, says, you might have pushed it too far... but with Hanna von Strafenburg on our next patrol, there's a flight of elven raiders comin' out of the stones, after twelve, they'll all be here - I think you know the job!**_

 _ ** **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered or crashed ideas, which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_**_

 _ ** _ **Anthony Fokker did not design the Fokker triplane. This came as a surprise to me.**_**_

 _ ** _ **Ok. I have to.**_**_

 _ ** _ **The lyrics to the Blue Öyster Cult's heavy metal showstopper "ME-262"**_**_

Goering's on the phone to Freiburg,  
Say's Willie's done quite a job!  
Hitler's on the phone from Berlin,  
Say's I'm gonna make you a star!

My Captain Von Ondine, here's your next patrol;  
A flight of English bombers across the canal,  
After twelve, they'll all be here -  
I think you know the job!

They hung there dependant from the sky;  
Like some heavy metal fruit!  
These bombers, ripened, ready to tilt,  
Must these Englishmen live that I might die?  
Must they live that I might die?

In a G-load disaster from the rate of climb,  
Sometimes I'd faint, and be lost to our side;  
But there's no reward for failure, but death!  
So watch me in the mirrors, keep in the glidepath.

Get me through these radars, no I cannot fail  
Not when great silver slugs are eager to feed,  
I can't fail, no not now -  
When twenty five bombers wait ripe!

They hung there dependant from the sky -  
Like some heavy metal fruit!  
These bombers, ripened, ready to tilt;  
Must these Englishmen live that I might die?  
Must they live, that I might die?

Me-262 prince of turbojet, Junkers jumo 004!  
Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout,  
And see these English planes go burn!  
Now you be my witness, how red were the skies,  
When the Fortresses flow, for the very last time;  
It was dark over Westphalia, in April of 45!

They hung there dependant from the sky -  
Like some heavy metal fruit!  
These bombers, ripened, ready to tilt -  
Must these Englishmen live that I might die?  
Must they live that I might die?

Must these Englishmen live that I might die?  
Junker.s Jumo 004 (repeat many times)  
Bombers at 12 o'clock high...

And, OK, the other one, _**Night Witches** _by Sabaton...

From the depths of hell in silence  
Cast their spells, explosive violence  
Russian night time flight perfected  
Flawless vision, undetected

Pushing on and on, their planes are going strong  
Air Force number one  
Somewhere down below they're looking for the foe  
Bomber's on the run  
You can't hide, you can't move, just abide  
Their attack's been proved (raiders in the dark)  
Silent through the night the witches join the fight  
Never miss their mark

Canvas wings of death  
Prepare to meet your fate  
Night Bomber Regiment  
588

Undetected, unexpected  
Wings of glory  
Tell their story  
Aviation, deviation  
Undetected  
Stealth perfected

Foes are losing ground, retreating to the sound  
Death is in the air  
Suddenly appears, confirming all your fears  
Strike from witches lair  
Target found, come around, barrels sound  
From the battleground (axis aiming high)  
Rodina awaits, defeat them at the gates  
Live to fight and fly

Canvas wings of death  
Prepare to meet your fate  
Night Bomber Regiment  
588

Undetected, unexpected  
Wings of glory  
Tell their story  
Aviation, deviation  
Undetected  
Stealth perfected

Beneath the starlight of the heavens  
Unlikely heroes in the skies (witches to attack, witches coming back)  
As they appear on the horizon  
The wind will whisper when the night witches come

Undetected, unexpected  
Wings of glory  
Tell their story  
Aviation, deviation  
Undetected  
Stealth perfected

From the depths of hell in silence  
Cast their spells, explosive violence  
Russian night time flight perfected  
Flawless vision, undetected


	7. The Hag of the High Airs

_**The Price of Flight – part seven**_

 _ **The Hag of the High Airs**_

 _ **V0.2. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space. Look out for defiant pilots, with a touch of the spitfire, unleashing a tempest and flying through a whirlwind hurricane of puns**_

The Elves, moving on the ground and looking for things to torment, were stalking a family of foxes. Eventually, they'd take those pretty tails.

They simply paid no attention to what was stalking _them_.

Three Elves became two. Then two Elves became one. Then the last Elf realised he was on his own. He briefly wondered. And then the knife took him.

A black-clad figure smiled to himself and slipped back into the trees. He had stalked with panache, assessed his clients with professional competence, devised the most stylish approach strategy, and then inhumed them with quiet competent ease. With the courtesy and understanding appropriate to his profession, he ignored the rather _gamey_ odour of the client as he let the body settle quietly.

Roger Forbishly, who had a long time ago been in Mykkims House, a Lancre man who had attended the Guild School in a long-ago boyhood, considered this to be necessary pro-bono work. It was his first wet work in _decades_. While he was Guild Head in Lancre, that didn't mean much when only one Assassin lived there. And it was a country that really didn't have much call on the Guild's time. He had felt distinctly under-employed, in fact.

Roger grinned. _And people thought being sixty-seven meant you were past it._ He paid a few moments attention to how he'd phrase the report for Downey. Hmmph. _That boy was a cringing little wretch who I remember as being fag to Tony Bullingdon-Myers. And they let him become Guild Master. Amazing._ And an Assassin, old enough to remember Lord Downey as a snotty little new insect of eleven, went to rejoin the others. Who were also out on the ground making life difficult for the intruders.

And he hoped the little chaps, the Feegle, had got the message to those maniac women in the sky who were lobbing fireballs like there was no tomorrow. _Watch where you're dropping them. We're down here too, and we are fighting on the same side._ There had been a quite enormous bang a while back, something fiery dropping out of the sky that had impacted the ground too damn close. It had made quite a mess of a few Elves who Forbishley and his party had been trailing.

Then he nearly tripped over the pistol crossbow on the ground. It looked bashed about, with scratching and chips that looked recent, scars marring the exquisite black enamelling. As if it had been dropped from a great height. And it was Guild make. Roger looked for indications as to ownership. Squinting in the moonlight and holding it up to see what glittered and caught the eye, he made out the gilded initials in the stock.

They read _AGB._

Roger almost said it out loud. His training made him merely whisper it.

"Good Gods. _She's_ here?"

He looked further up and saw the woman's body in the branches of the tree. He wondered for a second, and realised her hair was blonde and she wasn't dressed as Guild. And she was very dead. He took off his hat in respect, then marked the spot, and set off to find some of those Feegle chaps. To get the word to somebody. Figure out a way of getting the poor girl down for a decent burial. Somebody must know who she is. _Was_.

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, shortly before the battle.**_

The Guild porters, carrying the large iron box with obvious reluctance, appeared eager to put it down on the table in front of the teacher. They stood well back with some relief, well away from the metaphorical blue touchpaper.

Madame la Comptesse de Lapoignard, Emmanuelle les Deux-Epées, looked at them gravely and thanked them for going above and beyond the call of duty. Then she turned to her class, thirty older students, and the _guests_ who were present. The guests were here strictly unofficially. But at least one Very Senior Assassin and Dark Council member had nodded and discreetly made arrangements.

" _Attention, mes élèves."_ Emmanuelle said. _"Et aussi, mes amies."_

She nodded at the group of women who were older and not in Assassin black.

"I have requested these things to be brought out of secure storage today as demonstration items for our lesson." she said, carefully donning the gauntlets. "You are here for a lesson in the theory and the practice of bladed weapons. As Assassins, you must know, at least by sight, the wide variety of blades you will encounter in the course of a working life. Those that will often be seen in the hands of people who would then diligently attempt to insert them into you, through holes which were not initially there."

She pulled on the left gauntlet.

"The items in this box are dangerous. They are not kept on open display in the Dark Museum for very good and pressing reasons. They reside in an iron chest in a locked and secure room. They are typical of a foe who is not human. Who share none of the values of humanity, nor indeed of dwarfs, trolls or goblins. I will not dwell on how the Guild came to acquire these. And I will ask you, in all earnestness, to each hold something of iron or steel in your hand while we speak, so as to be able to say the name without hindrance. We will be speaking it a lot in the next hour."

Emmanuelle raised her gloved hands. They were the sort of gloves worn by somebody who expects their hands might be a target for violence, thick sturdy leather, and with metal plates sewn into the backs and palms and down the backs of the fingers.

She placed a hand on the metal of the case.

"The word. Is _Elf_."

 _ **Lancre Castle. Day Two.**_

Dead beat, Olga Romanoff made herself walk to the crash area set aside for sleeping, without staggering. She had insisted there should be no separate quarters for the officer commanding. She'd live as the girls lived. And sleep as they slept. Where private space was needed, it could be found.

She had stood down half her command – including, after due reflection, herself – so that they could get some sleep. She had asked the duty Teknik to wake them all up in exactly four hours. Then the other half of the squadron could come off watch and snatch some sleep.

Olga noted sleep was indeed happening, if fitfully in some cases. She noted Marina Raskova and Kiiki Pekkisaalen were sleeping together,, under a blanket, arms round each other. She wondered briefly, then shrugged. She'd shared a common blanket or a bed with Irena often enough in their adventures, but that _certainly_ didn't mean _they_ were… _none of my business,_ she reminded herself, firmly. Then she wondered if it was. If two of her command were a married couple, as good as. What if one was killed or wounded? Implications.

 _I'll deal with that when it happens. No point in adding woes that haven't happened yet._

Olga blinked. There it was, on top of her bed-roll. Her Cossack fur cap. The one she'd thought lost forever, after the scrap with the elf on her broomstick. Olga picked it up and turned it in her hands. No mistake. Her name was on the tape sewn inside. O.A.E. POMAHЯOФ.

Olga turned it over in her hands, wondering. Slightly dirty, the fur was full of plant debris and pine needles, needs brushing… but mine. Mystery.

 _Aye, weel, we got the Hag O' The High Air her wee furry black bonnet back, Rob Anybody._

 _Aye, Daft Wullie. We saw the writin', inside. The writin' that didnae follow the rules. The Kelda explained and she said that_ Squirell-ick _writing only belongs to one people and some of them is at the Castle and we are to return it there._

 _Squirrels can write? They must be awfy clever wee beasties!_

Olga smiled slightly. She said, in a low voice

"Show yourselves. Report to me. And do so quietly. There are people sleeping here."

"Aye, Mistress."

Olga counted the Feegle who were emerging. She folded her arms.

"You found my _papakha_. I thank you"

"Aye, mistress. We wuz watchin' the fight in the high airs. Dodgin' bits of yon scunners droppin' oot the skies. And some of them bits wuz awf'y _wee._ An' then this bonnet comes floatin' down. _"_

"Aye. An' we thinks. Hags is up there fightin'. Hags wear black bonnets. This belongs tae a Hag."

The spokesfeegle looked up at her.

"'Tis not right for a Hag not tae have her hat." He said. "We con-seedered we wuz under a Geese. Aye. Tae find the Hag, tae return her bonnet."

"T'was not an easy thing." Rob Anybody said. "There wuz writin' in the inside. A name. And my Kelda taught me the knowin' of the letters. Or I _thought_ she had taught me the kennin'. But some of _these_ letters. I asked Jeannie. She said there is" - and the Feegle made a shocked and frightened gasp, confronted with a terror beyond imagining - " _more than one alph-a-bettie_. This one she named _Squirrelic_."

Olga suddenly saw the problem. She grinned, then mistressed herself.

" _Da. Squirillic_." she said, thsi time keeping a straight face. "Different alphabet."

She put the cap on. And squared it.

"Properly called the _papakha_ or the _astrakhan peren_." she said. "That depends on your Horde or your Host. I belong to the Vulga Horde. Here, it can be called also the _ushanka_. Not a bonnet."

The Feegle seemed to stand or sit up straighter as Olga straightened her fur cap. She wondered about the coincidence. Cossacks didn't _have_ to wear black. There were traditions, but no hard and fast rules. So long as the Horde heraldry in the crown was correct, the fur could be grey or brown. Even white. But she and Irena had selected black. Without even thinking of the Witch associations.

"I thank you for your courtesy." Olga said. "A witch must wear her black hat. _Pravda._ Truth. Now come with me out of the sleeping area."

Sleep could wait a little longer. She conferred with a duty Teknik. He unlocked a certain stores chest. The Feegle perked up, expectantly. From their point of view, the day was getting better.

"A kindness and a courtesy returned." Olga said, pouring glasses. "That too is right."

Olga considered adding one for herself. _Nyet._ The commander takes a drink and those she commands cannot? Then she set the bottle aside and took a certain amusement in the Feegles' first exposure to..

"Crivvens! 'Tis _strong_! Sez here on the bottle, Wee Dangerous Spike, it sez… B – O – D – K – A in gey big letters. _**BODKA**_."

"That first letter is a "V". Olga corrected them. "The rest are the same as in the Latatian alphabet used here." She smiled slightly. " _Squirrelic._ Remember?" **(1)**

Then she became serious.

"Listen to me. I will tell you how I came to lose my _ushanka_. How I have lost pilots."

"Aye, Hag o' the' High Airs." Said a larger cheerful-looking Feegle. "Yon puir lassie who the Man In Black found deid hangin' up in the tall tree, and…"

Other Feegle muffled him quickly. Olga glared.

"It is true, Hag O' The High Airs." the one called Rob Anybody said. "We brought her down. With care and with respect, ye ken. We asked counsel o' the Quin, Quin Magrat, that is, and of oor Kelda. The puir deid girl lies now below us, safe in the mor-too-err-y."

Olga relaxed.

 _I need sleep. Sigrid will get no deader. She will understand if I do not see her now._

"Then again I thank you. I will briefly explain certain things. Where we are weak in the air and where El… _they_ – have got in to hurt us. How they killed Sigrid and how I came to be nearly killed and to lose my cap. I have a favour to ask of you…"

 _ **The Assassins' Guild School, shortly before the battle.**_

Emmanuelle lifted the items in the box. Her expanded class watched attentively.

"Just because a weapon looks crude and is not made of metal does not mean it cannot kill."

She brandished a knife that appeared to be chipped from one long thin flake of flint. The handle was made of what looked like bone tied with a grip made of a wound strip of continuously wound leather. The leather, her class noted, seemed suspiciously pale. The remnants of feathers and coloured cloth hung from the pommel.

Emmanuelle demonstrated with a piece of paper run against the blade that it was still razor-sharp. The paper seemed to hum as it separated into two neatly cut sections.

"This is the standard sort of fighting knife carried by the Elves. For reasons I will discuss later, it is wise not to receive even the slightest scratch from one."

She laid the weapon down with care. She went on to discuss bows – double recurved, made from a laminate of layers of bone and wood, the string – well, it is best to think of it as animal gut for now. Arrows made as you might expect with sharpened flint heads. Their metal working is rudimentary and handicapped by not being able to work iron. But if in forays into the human world they find bronze, or brass, or pewter, or the newly-refined and discovered thing called _aluminium,_ they adapt it.

"It is thought that lead is also inimical to them, but not to the same degree as iron." she said. "This war-club is weighted with lead, but carefully wrapped in cloth. The supposition is that lead is poisonous only on physical contact and a braver Elf than most experimented with a pleasing weight at the killing end of his mace. Unlike iron, it has no distance effect."

A student asked if it wasn't courting trouble to have these things anywhere in the Guild _at all_ , ma'am. Emmanuelle complimented him on his prudent thought.

"It is a common substition **(2)** that a sword, a weapon in intimate contact with its owner for many years and decades, absorbs something of the personality and psychic outlook of that owner." she said. "Some swords have a reputation for being cursed. In the Dark Museum, we have, for instance, one of the Muramasa swords, a _nihonto_. While I can fight with the nihonto, I would not care to fight with this one. Nor would my colleague Koukouchou-sama **.(3)** If your weapons affinity is the sword and you are in tune with them, you can feel the malice from that weapon from some yards away, and you will most assuredly _know_ it could twist in your hand and stab you, its wielder. And I am no magic user."

She lifted the Elven long knife again.

"Imagine, then, the amount of malice, of hostility to humanity, contained in alien weapons such as these. I am wearing metal on my hands. Even so, I am taking no chances. Before these were accepted for the Dark Museum, we took the advice of the University. Professor Stibbons recommended steeping them in salt water for some weeks. Apparently, this kills any form of residual magic, benign or malicious, in an artefact and you end up merely with the object."

She smiled slightly.

"The explanation was hard to follow, but I understood from the Professor that this is a complex reaction in biothaumic chemistry in which free-floating positively charged octagen ions in salt water neutralise negatively charged particles in the magical artefact **."(4)**

Emmanuelle looked over at Olga Romanoff. She shrugged. "When you dispense with all the wizard-speak, salt water kills magic." Olga said. "Witches have known this for _ages_."

"ah, merci!"

Olga reflected that while most people present had refrained from touching the Elven weapons, she, Olga Romanoff, had still suspected that not all the malice in them was dead. Ginny Heartsease had for some reason – possibly curiosity – chosen to pick up the elven battle-mace, the one with the lead weight. A second or two she had gone white and put it down again. Olga had not considered this to be serious, and in any case Ginny had been warned about touching them. She'd just lifted it, shuddered, and hurriedly put it down again. _Just as I might_.

And in the present, in Lancre, Ginny was concussed and had been patched up as best the other girls could. After having being hit, several times, with an Elven battle-club.

"We really need an Igor." Olga said, shaking her head.

"You called, Mithtreth?"

The voice had come from right behind her. Olga jumped slightly. She'd managed three hours' sleep in the end but it still didn't feel like nearly enough. And she'd heard the Clacks trunk had been severed between Lancre and Sheepridge. A flight had been sent out to make contact and report back. It was possible Irena's unit was in combat. It might even – horrible thought – have been overwhelmed. She needed information.

Olga turned to the Igor, who was looking expectant. She also saw Nanny Ogg and Queen Magrat. Nanny looked a little sad.

"Olga, love, they just brung the other one in. you know, Jennny Gorlock. From Eel Springs. Just bin to talk to her mum and dad. Jenny's bein' looked after. We laid her next to Sigrid, for now."

Olga nodded. She made the witch bow to Queen Magrat. Who looked _scary_ in that armour.

"I'm so sorry. You've been doing a lot of the fighting. And, well. Nanny sent to Hot Dang, where the nearest Igors are." Magrat said.

"I'm the only one they could thpare, for now." Igor said. "There wath heavy fighting at a lumberjack camp. Many dead."

"Can you… see to Ginny? Please?" Olga said. Igor nodded and picked up his bag. Olga picked up her voice.

"Anyone with wounds, bumps, bruises, scratches. See Igor. Thank you."

She turned back to Granny and Magrat.

"I need to send a flight to the Chalk. This is urgent." she said. "Do you wish me to have a flight check Hot Dang? If the elves are nearby who attacked the lumberjacks. We can get them."

Nanny shook her head.

"Heavily forested up there, love." she said. "I'm not sure you'd spot anything moving in the trees. 'Sides, we got people on the ground there. Sort of covert. They nearly got hit by something left over from the fighting in the air. Got the request to ask you to be careful about what you lets fall to earth. They knows you ain't doin' it on purpose and accidents happen, but you needs to know."

Magrat unfurled a map. She and Nanny took turns explaining what was going on at ground level.

"Just here, in the forests around Creel and Slice where we discovered… well, Sigrid. May her Gods receive her. There's a, well, _partisan group_ , they calls themselves, on the ground. In between killin' elves and fighting back, they've appreciated watchin' what you've been doing in the sky. They say if any of your girls crash-land and need gettin' to safety, they'll get to them before the elves do. But please don't bomb them."

"Da. Friendly fire." Olga agreed. "To be avoided."

"Oh." Nanny rummaged. She untangled things with audible twanging noises and eventually brought out a rather battered pistol crossbow. "Nearly forgot. This got retrieved. You ain't got that Alice Band here with you, have you? Roger was askin'."

" _Nyet."_ Olga said. "She can't fly, for one thing. Dead weight."

"We don't carry passengers, Nanny, Mum." Nottie Garlick said. Olga smiled slightly. She heard a commotion. It was growing louder.

"Now _that's_ where you're wrong…"

* * *

And over the Chalk, Irena Politek's small command was still fighting. Incredibly, she hadn't lost a pilot yet. But a new wave of Elves had burst from the Stones. Six pilots, heavily outnumbered, were again doing all they could to blunt the elven onslaught. And Irena now had everything in the air, including the two new fledglings, who were learning all the time. Provided they stayed alive.

She reflected that she had to consider a fighting retreat to Lancre if support didn't arrive in time. Then she decided this would be shaming. They were here to help defend the Chalk. Whose people were fighting on the ground below them and didn't have the option of retreat.

 _The enemy is at the gates. We fight them at the gates._

Her sabre swung at an Elf who had got too close. Irena noted how they froze at the approach of a length of steel. Which was, after all, 96% iron.

 _Rust was right. Just showing them cold steel does work on some enemies._

" _Ruskiya'rat!"_ she screamed, as the elf fell away.

One of the old slogans from Komsomelets days echoed in her head.

" _Do you want to die on your feet? Or on your knees?"_

The words echoed around the sky.

"On your feet! Or on your knees!" **(5)**

Then she had her first taste of the tactic the elves had been using to down pilots over Lancre. It was young Matilda Glossop's broom they chose to flame. Irena watched as the young recruit pilot belatedly realised she was flying a burning broomstick, and determinedly put the nose down in a power-dive, steep and dangerous, which might put the flames out. Irena whistled. Nobody had taught the girl that. She'd worked it out all for herself.

Darleen and Hanna fell in behind her, driving off Elves who were flocking to an easy-seeming kill. Irena sighed. Three pilots left. She had to be prudent. She mustered Sally and Bethany, and pointed her sword down towards Home Farm.

"Regroup!" she called. "Back to base!"

And six pilots withdrew from a combat with three or four times their number.

* * *

From Lancre, another flight set off for the Chalk. Olga needed to find out what was happening down there. With the Clacks link gone, direct contact was vital. She also suspected Irena needed reinforcement. The last clacks before the tower had been damaged had reported contact with the enemy. Olga needed to see for herself. She had also decided to reinforce the Chalk with what could be spared. The three magic carpets had been loaded with essential stores and had set off, apparently unescorted and an easy target.

Olga smiled to herself and took a flight, mounted on a mix of the standard ME-109 all-purpose Watch broom and the faster, purpose-built, ME-262. The 109's had been proven in combat. It was now the turn of the 262's. These had been designed as combat interceptors. The nose was bulbous and fatter than the usual broom. What looked like a long stabilising fin stood out on either side. If you looked really closely, you would see what looked like nostrils depressed into the front of the bulges. Four of them.

These were the recessed barrels of the multiple repeating crossbows built into the bulging snout. It was a revolutionary mechanism. Not very accurate over fifty yards and tended to lose propulsive power beyond that. But close to. It fired smaller, but hard, fast and lethal, bolts very fast indeed.

Would they work? Olga shrugged. It had tested promisingly. You could always revert to the proven ways of fighting if it didn't. And this was a fast broom… Her eight chosen pilots quickly got a few thousand feet above the carpets and waited for something to take the bait. The bait flew on quickly, in the deceptively slow-seeming plodding manner of Klatchian carpets. But ones her Tekniks had worked up and _augmented_.

* * *

Matilda Glossop sensed she was in trouble. It had made desperate sense: push the nose down and dive. Massive airstream back over the broom. Blow out the fire in the bristles. Simple.

But the ground was coming up nearer and nearer. A glance behind her had told her the flame was holding on in there. But there was Home Farm, on the sky just above her head… the tricky thing would be getting there. Matilda pulled back hard on the stick. Slowly, painfully slowly, fighting her all the way, inch by inch, the nose lifted.

Observers from underneath might have seen a young Witch in a near-vertical crash dive on a burning broom that was trailing smoke, and they might have intended to look away or close their eyes when… but just as the crash and the explosion was abount to happen, when the observer might have said "now I pull my eyes away" but somehow didn't… she pulled into level flight again at an insanely low altitude, still on a burning stick but one that was at least bleeding off the speed.

They would have seen the broom, feet above the ground, crash through a hedgerow. One that pulled the witch out of the pilot's seat and left her hanging there, winded and gasping, whilst the now pilotless stick, the blaze and fire in the bristles leaping into life again, went charging off on its own.

Right into a group of Elves who were approaching the farmstead, who had stopped to watch the crashing Witch, to see if it hurt and if she screamed.

The stick exploded in a fireball of abused and unchanneled exothaumic energy.

The Air Watch powers its brooms with a lot more than the usual amount of "oomph" needed to make a stick go. Its tekniks are good at adding supercharge and turbo, even to the everyday Yak of a working witch. As the pilots well know, this is very finely calculated and can go wrong. Or, in this case, right.

This was not the last of the woes for the raiding Elf party. Its survivors contemplated the dead and near-dead fellows scattered in and around a sudden crater, ignored them, jeered at them for being stupid and slow, and pressed on to Home Farm. Destroying the base of the Air Witches was a part of it. Getting some of them on the ground would be better. And it had animals, like chickens and baby sheep, to play with.

It also had Joe Aching and his son Wentworth, who were defending their home. It also had Ground Teknik Anton van Fokker, who had grasped part of his new employment contract to Sergeant Irena, who had played fair, was that he was called upon to fight like Hell for her and for them other girls. He was a Dwarf. He had an axe. And Dwarfs hated, really hated, Elves. He ran to get the girl out of the hedge. A Teknik serves his pilots. They fight for him; he fights for them. The contract. A couple of elves who got in his way very briefly wished they hadn't.

The elves soon realised they were in a fight.

The remaining airborne pilots swooped in and joined the combat. Home Farm was safe. four pursued. One flew down to check on Matilda, who had shakily extricated from the hedge.

* * *

Meanwhile in the air, the bait had been taken. Elves in flight appeared to be learning only slowly. Those three magic carpets fascinated them. They seemed to be guarded lightly. They were stacked with crates and boxes. Plunder.

They did not look above them.

The first elf dropped onto a carpet, singing softly. His yarrow stalk hovered obediently nearby. Another Elf joined him.

"Well, _hello_ , boys!" a small voice roared.

A Dwarf emerged from a gap between boxes. He grinned. Indicated his steel armour. And hefted his mattock. At the same time, Feegle started to pop up. A short fight ensued. At the front of the carpet, an Elf who tried for the pilot discovered the finer cultural points, and the sharp cultural edge, of a Klatchian tulwar sword. The pilot spat, watching the Elf's body tumbling through the sky.

" _Djinni."_ he said, contemptuously. Klatch knew Elves, too.

And the new brooms, with the bulbous shark-like noses, tipped into a bank and tumbled from the sky.

Olga Romanoff flew the ME-262 with her Watch badge number, 588, **(6)** stencilled on the nose. An elf danced across her field of vision. She chose her moment and briefly thumbed the trigger, feeling her two-six-two shudder in the air.

Reminding herself there was only so much ammo, and she could use it all up before she knew it. She sped past, getting the briefest glimpse of a cloud of scattering debris, and shouted a war-cry.

Every sense twanged and she rejoiced, briefly, in the glory of pure flight, flipping the two-six-two up into a looping turn. She half-heard a voice.

 _You are good, Olga Romanoff, and you know it. I'm minded to think you're the greatest air witch we've got. But be mindful, girl. There is a price of flight and you'll be called upon to pay it. That's all I'm sayin'_.

She heard a little voice behind her say "Crivvens!" and recalled she wasn't alone up here…

Elsewhere in the sky, an Elf with a blazing torch steered almost to within lighting distance of an air witch. He drew near and was extending his arm…

"See me, Tinkerbelle! Ye likes playin' with fire, diz ye? Well, play wi' this!"

Each witch now carried a Feegle, at least one Feegle, who was tasked to watch her back for moments like this and provide close-in defence. The incidence of brooms brought down by fire would drop to zero.

However, as Olga discovered, while the ME-262 might be a magnificent fighting platform, it was still an experimental design. The Tekniks hadn't yet got all the bugs out of it. It was, they apologetically said, still a bit _temperamental_ , ma'am…

As the exothaumic power spluttered, flipped in and out and then died, Olga remembered the little flaws. She sighed.

Going to glide down, Wee Crazy Derek." she said to her Feegle. "Should be able to make an emergency landing okay. Stand by."

"Right y'are, Mistress." her Feegle replied. He was riding with the Hag Of The High Airs herself. She'd land safely.

"You never know. It might even switch on again." **(7)**

 _ **To be continued – I have ideas about how, in-universe, Olga becomes "Syren". Watch this space**_ _._

* * *

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 **(1)** There was a monk, who had become a Saint of the Orthodox Potato Church. St Cyril of St PeterProcknicksburg. Monks write things. It's a big part of the job specification. Brother Cyril heard the Rus language used all around him. He had never questioned the fact that some of it had to be written down for posterity, or at least the bits worth keeping had to be written down. But the fact remained that neither the old Glugolic runes handed down since time immoral, nor the Latatian alphabet borrowed from neighbours towards the Turnwise, were doing the job. They did not fit the sounds of Rus. Cyril, and an assistant monk called Klimenti, set about listening to their own language. They identified the sounds. Where a Latatian letter fitted a phoneme, they kept it. For some sounds, Ephebian letters did the job better. But for a lot of sounds, they had to begin from scratch and invent their own. They did this so well that even today, a chant of praise in the Orthodox Potato Church used in Plainsong every Octeday, honouring the man who gave the Rus people a distinctive orthography all of their own and is therefore a Hero, goes _Нице оне, Църил, нице оне, сон! нице оне Църил, ит дон'т неед анотхер оне!_

 **(2)** We have superstitions, irrational magical associations to certain objects and dates, such as a deeply held conviction that things coming in groups of thirteens (like Olga's Night Witches) are unlucky. The Discworld has _substitions_. Where you can still make an irrational association of doom between an object and a consequent event based on seemingly illogical, unconnected and irrational presumptions. And you would be dead right because it will happen. Every time.

 **(3)** Miss Pretty Butterfly taught Agatean Studies at the Guild School. She had, for instance, a memorable way of dealing with pupils who thought every Agatean sword was a katana, and pointing out to them that they were dead wrong. The emphasis being the point. Which _might_ be of a katana. But _could_ be a nihonto, or an odachi, or perhaps a wakizashi or a kodachi.

 **(4)** Chemists out there – just spotted this one. A positively charged ion. I _think_ these exist and aren't an antimatter thing. But should it be a cation or something? I'd really love Ponder's pig-Chemistry to be as right as the pig-Latin…

 **(5)** Incidentally, the title of a magnificently raw live LP by the Blue Öyster Cult. With a cracking encore of _**ME-262.**_

 **(6)** There had been no order or purpose to Watch badge allocation. Sam Vimes had retrieved a crate full of them from the Palace and handed them out more-or-less at random, in a "lucky dip" sort of way, to new Watchmen. If a badge number had a History, it was recorded somewhere. He had been surprised that Irena and Olga, once passed out from training, had received consecutive numbers, 587 and 588 **(6.1).** Vimes had remarked that there had to be a first time for everything, and what were the chances of that?. (For the bewildered, look up "Night Bomber Regiment 588" to see what the link is). Later on, after this war, Olga had asked if 500-series numbers could be separated out for Air Watch use. Vimes had agreed. (And yes, this means ret-conning "Strandpiel" to make Rebecka Smith-Rhodes' badge number into 523 – the fighting in Lancre takes place nine or ten years before an older Bekki joins the Air Watch, don't forget)

 **(6.1)** People asked Olga whether she thought having a badge with a double-7a in it was, you know, _unlucky_? She considered this.

"Da." Olga replied. "But who is to say the bad luck is mine? Ask the people I deal with. After I have dealt with them. Then ask where the bad fortune goes."

As they say, a Witch makes her own luck.

 **(7)** Unreliable components and engine failure were a bugbear of the ME-262 on our world too.


	8. Syren and Red Star

_**The Price of Flight – part eight**_

 _ **Syren and Red Star**_

 _ **V0.3. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space. Thanks to reader mathust quill1 for suggesting a plot sideline worth adding - got to get Kiiki's surname completely correct and consistent across chapters.**_

GRAND TRUNKS++TURNWISE OCEAN REGION(LANCRE)

O/TOWER; LANCRE TOWN

D/TOWER: ANKH-MORPORK CITY WATCH PS/YD, FAO SIR SAMUEL VIMES

C/C – PP/AM FAO HIS GRACE LORD VETINARI, PATRICIAN.

LANCRE, DATE:

SITUATION REPORT:

FROM LANCE-CORPORAL (AIR WATCH) E.M.N.S GARLICK, ACTING (TEMPORARY) COMMANDING OFFICER, ANKH-MORPORK CITY AIR WATCH (LANCRE DIVISION)

CURRENT EFFECTIVE STRENGTH: ELEVEN PILOTS. (NOT COUNTING THE DETACHED COMMAND IN THE CHALK COMMANDED BY SERGEANT I.Y. POLITEK, LAST KNOWN TO NUMBER SIX)

KILLED IN ACTION: TWO

WOUNDED AND UNFIT FOR AIR COMBAT: TWO

MISSING IN ACTION: LIEUTENANT O.A.E. ROMANOFF

WITCH AIR POLICE CONSTABLE K.S. PEKKISSAALEN

NUMBER OF BROOMS LOST IN ACTION: NINE

TOTAL NUMBER OF ENEMY CONFIRMED KILLS IN THE AIR: NINETY-SIX

KILLS CLAIMED AND AS YET UNCONFIRMED: FIFTY-SEVEN.

ENEMY DESTROYED IN GROUND ACTION; THE BEST ESTIMATE IS OVER TWO HUNDRED, POSSIBLY MORE.

AS THE SENIOR RANK IN THE LANCRE DIVISION, AND WITH THE AWARENESS AND APPROVAL OF SERGEANT POLITEK AND CORPORAL VON STRAFENBURG IN THE CHALK, I HAVE ASSUMED TEMPORARY COMMAND HERE.

LIEUTENANT ROMANOFF WAS LAST SEEN IN CONTROL OF A BROOMSTICK THAT LOST EFFECTIVE POWER IN THE AIR. SHE WAS WITNESSED GUIDING IT DOWN TO A CRASH-LANDING IN THE WOODS. IT IS BELIEVED THAT SHE LANDED SAFELY AND IS ON HER WAY BACK TO US BY GROUND.

OFFICER PEKKISSAALEN WAS ALSO SEEN TO BE IN CHARGE OF A BROOMSTICK THAT SUFFERED LACK OF THAUMIC POWER WHILE IN THE AIR. SHE IS KNOWN TO HAVE REACHED THE GROUND SAFELY AND IS THEREFORE COUNTED AS "MISSING".

AS THE FAILED BROOMSTICKS WERE OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ME-262 CLASS, I HAVE ORDERED THE REST OF THIS FLEET GROUNDED AS UNFIT TO FLY. WE WILL SHORTLY HAVE USED UP THE LAST OF THE RESERVE BROOMS WE BROUGHT WITH US AND IT IS POSSIBLE, IF THIS RATE OF LOSS LASTS, THAT PILOTS MAY BE GROUNDED FOR WANT OF BROOMSTICKS.

I BELIEVE THAT IF SUITABLY ADAPTED, THE OFFENSIVE ARMAMENT OF THE 262'S (THE R-4-M AUTOMATED REPEATING CROSSBOWS) MAY BE ADAPTED FOR USE AS GROUND ARTILLERY. WE ARE EXPERIMENTING.

OFFICER V. HEARTSEASE IS NOW OUT OF DANGER AND HEALING BUT WILL BE UNFIT FOR FLIGHT.

PROBATIONARY RECRUIT AIR POLICEWOMAN MATILDA GLOSSOP SUSTAINED MINOR INJURIES IN A CRASH. THOSE WHO WITNESSED IT SAY SHE DID WELL TO SURVIVE THE FORCED LANDING.

WE ARE STILL FIGHTING.

Olga Romanoff considered her options. The rush of the air fighting and the speed of her broom had taken her out of the main action and she was a long way away from any of the others. Fortunately, there weren't any Elves in the sky out here too.

She was on her own out here. It was funny how a sky could be full of duelling air vehicles one minute, and the next, nothing. A phenomenon of air warfare, fluid and fast-moving.

She focused on the immediate problem. However high you were when you went into combat, the rush and impetus of the business took you down, a sort of fighting entropy. She'd started at six or seven thousand with height advantage; now, after the battle, she was probably at seven hundred. The treetops of the Lancre forests passed by underneath.

Underneath, she reminded herself, an unpowered broomstick where the magic had spluttered out, the thaumic flow that powered it having broken and faded. Mig Oyeff or Herr Schmidt would shake their heads sorrowfully and refer to a broken thaumic feedback circuit or a power ley-line disconnection or something. A known gremlin in the thaumo-technic power cycle in the two-six-two's Jumo systems, ma'am, but we're working on it… maybe we shouldn't use so much sapient pearwood in the thrusters, or a little more, or perhaps Howondalandian floating mahogany, it's tougher and has a more controlled capacity for thaumic release…

She currently had the opposite problem to the other hazard of high-performance broomsticks, the one where _too much_ magic overpowering staff and bristles could cause things to go off bang. She had the one where currently there was no magic at all.

All Olga had was a lot of forward momentum from the high speed she'd previously been enjoying and using. This was propelling her forwards and slightly down, gliding her. She could use this. It was the only thing that was stopping her from plummeting down vertically, like a brick in flight. With luck and skill, the momentum would last just long enough. But she had to be careful, so very careful, and judge things finely…. Olga grinned to herself. This was flying. Now she'd find out just how good a pilot she was. Just her, Olga Romanoff, against the potentially unforgiving sky.

The Price of Flight…

 _Got to be a straight line, or I'm killing the only advantage I've got. Lose height carefully, so carefully, a little at a time, not too much, or gradual descent becomes uncontrollable. At the same time I'm losing the momentum from that last burst of speed, it will not last forever. Get the balance right, Olga. At least when they built the protective covers over the limbs and the bowstrings, they thought ahead and fared them to make them aerodynamic. Odd to see on a broomstick. Like wings, one either side. But so good for stabilising and balance. Swept back, too. I'll have to tell the Tekniks well done, they work so well for gliding._

She looked down. The Lancre treetops were getting closer. Pine here. It reminded her of home. From above it always had: Far Überwald looked that sort of dark green from above. Her Rodinia, dark green as far as the eye could see, except when it got white.

 _Am I fighting for my Rodinia too? If they get Lancre, they will not stop here. The plague will spread._

"Reckon there's going to be a clearing coming up soon, Mistress?" her Feegle asked.

Olga shrugged. A clear area to land, right in front of them, would be useful, she conceded. If the world would be so obliging. But it had to be at the right height and in the right place… she shrugged as the right sort of clearing in the forest passed by beneath. They were simply too high up. She _could_ have landed into it, provided they didn't mind dropping vertically from a hundred and fifty feet up.

It passed by under them. _Nichevo. Woodcutting and charcoal burning goes on here. In normal times. Where there is one there will be another._

And then the tops of the fir trees were whipping at her legs. She raised them. Olga accepted the sting with fatalistic stoicism. She focused on the green in front of her.

And suddenly there was a clearing. She didn't quite reach it; the broomstick smashed into low fir branches about ten feet up, the last fading momentum spending itself. There was a rending noise of abused wood.

Then a silence.

"Well, ye got us doon, Mistress."

" _Govno_." Olga said, spitting out pine needles. She counted and tested limbs. They worked.

When she eased herself out and dropped to the ground, thinking "A good landing is one you can walk away from", and realised she'd dropped into a clearing full of Elves, she sighed. Clearly, it was going to be one of those days.

* * *

" _Perkele!"_ Kiiki Pekkissaalen screamed as the magic spluttered and died on her two-six-two. " _Vittu! Saatana! Perkele_!"

So as not to waste it, she lined up a last Elf against her nose, reckoned for deflection, and blasted off the last rounds from her R4M's. As the repeating action started to click on empty chambers, she conceded she might have made a little error of judgement here. Firing a big powerful weapon mounted on the front of a broomstick that had suddenly run out of forward energy hadn't just halted it in the air, it had actually juddered backwards.

She was now flying a brick.

Kiiki felt her two-six two slewing to the side and tipping over. She rolled with it, said "Perkele." philosophically, and threw herself off.

 _And to think I almost didn't bother with a parachute…_

Wearing parachutes or not was left to individual pilot judgement. Some didn't like the restricting mass on their backs and the way it impeded movement. Kiiki had thought about this. She knew about the little design flaws and the bugs in the two-six-two's airframe. She had decided that with a broom that was beautiful when it worked, a shark of the air, but which had quirks, a parachute was a no-brainer.

She watched her broomstick plummeting out of the fight, and saluted it, hanging underneath the parachute.

" _Jäähyväiset, terveellisyys."_

She patted the flask of Swommi vodka she carried at her hip. It was against standing orders, she knew. The _Ryssä_ **(1)** had probably noticed, but hadn't called her on it yet. Kiiki watched the sky around her. The hand that wasn't steering the parachute moved from the vodka flask to her _puukko_ and squeezed the hilt.

" _Witches shouldn't carry weapons!"_ she recalled. _"Well, perkele on that."_

A little later Kiiki had opportunity to use the other weapon, the pistol crossbow on loan from the Assassins as a side-arm. An incautious elf was trying to get in close with a wicked looking blade. The Air Witch dangling from the parachute then grinned. And got him first.

Kiiki knew the monogrammed initials in this one's stock were JFS-R. She intended to hand it back personally and thank the owner, once back in Ankh-Morpork. She re-loaded and reholstered it swiftly, then braced. _Time to hit the ground running._

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, The Patrician's Palace.**_

Vimes read the latest despatch and blinked. He tried, conscientiously, not to think of Olga Romanoff in the past tense, reminding himself that all people had seen was her steering a damaged broomstick down to the ground and that she must have been perfectly unwounded and healthy to do that. With any luck he'd see her again.

He dragged his mind to other issues.

" _Nottie's_ in charge?" he said, incredulously. "I mean. It's not as if she isn't fit, sir, but she is only seventeen, if that! And they're down to eleven? Olga went there with twenty-odd!"

Vetinari gave him a tolerant look.

"Read the despatch _carefully_ , Sir Samuel." he said. "In normal circumstances, for any unit to begin with a lieutenant in command and to reach the point where the senior surviving rank is a lance-corporal would suggest it is in serious trouble and has taken grievous losses. But she makes it clear that the sergeant and the senior corporal are elsewhere and outside the chain of command at the moment. Both are accepting that the flight in Lancre has to be supervised and directed by someone. Sergeant Politek has not only kept her original four fliers alive, she has augmented them by _two_. Commendable."

"Matilda Glossop." Vimes said. "I did wonder "Who the hells is she?"

"They are recruiting already and seeking to make good their losses." Vetinari said. "I am sure you will accept an influx of new blood into the Watch in the customary way? Capital. Now. The news of the attack on the Clacks tower is grievous to me. We cannot have this sort of thing happening with impunity."

Vimes had an inner vision of Adora Belle Dearheart glaring at him and smoking meaningfully.

"This allows me a legitimate opportunity to intervene." Vetinari said. "I have considered appropriate escorts to the Grand Trunks engineers who will carry out the repairs at the Sheepridge tower. I need you to be even more flexible in your staffing arrangements while the emergency persists."

"Who do you need, sir?"

"Vetinari told him. Vimes sighed.

"I'll make the arrangements, sir."

Vetinari smiled, faintly.

"No need. They have already departed on the train to Twoshirts. You are making the command retrospectively."

* * *

Olga Romanoff glared at the Elves. She felt the beginnings of their glamour washing over her. She scowled and indicated that she was wearing steel armour. She was also wearing a metal skullcap inside her _ushanka._

"I'll get help, Mistress." a voice said from ground level. Olga nodded, considering her options. Not many of the elves facing her had bows. But all were grinning and closing on her. One of the Air Witches who had caused them grievous damage was now caught on the ground, a reluctant infantrywoman. It was a good time for them to play catch-up.

Olga remembered something Jason Ogg the blacksmith had told her about the last time the elves had invaded Lancre. It sounded like desperation, but she reasoned that she was in a desperate situation and it might work.

She stamped her booted foot on the ground and established a rhythm. She started to sing at them.

 _Oy, chto-to my zasidelisʹ, bratsi ,_

 _Ne pora li nam razgulyatʹsya?_

It was working. She continued the Song of the Swords

 _Русь молодая , силы немерено ,_

 _Дайте коня мне да добрый меч!_

After a while she drew her sabre and began the moves, twists, turns and evolutions of the sabre dance. The Elves began to draw closer, entranced and captivated. Olga smiled. At least she was buying time. And who knows, she might get out of this alive.

* * *

Kiiki Pekkissaalen suspected other eyes had followed her down to earth. She needed to be fast. Shedding her parachute, she bundled it up into a depression in the earth between two trees and began kicking and throwing forest-floor debris over it. Satisfied it was hidden, she began a loping run, loosening the puukko knife in its sheath. She was tempted to have it in her right hand, but conceded that might not be a bright idea when running over un-known terrain with lots of tripping hazards.

She looked around her. Birch trees dominated here. And she smiled. She'd spotted a small lake as she came down. In a gloomy dank birch forest. One she'd been told had bear, wolves and deer in it.

All it needed was a soundtrack **.(2)** And it was just like home.

Kiiki loped on down a track, seeking for signs of people and listening for evidence of nearby Elves. She had no objection to finding the latter, but on her own terms. The former could guide her back to where she could get a broom and be back in the air again. She came from a country where people felt uncomfortably crowded if their nearest neighbours lived a mile away. Living in Ankh-Morpork had desensitised her somewhat and she even enjoyed it in many ways. But put her in a birch forest and suddenly she was a Swommi again. And she could sense another person, or persons, from a long way away.

And she heard, or sensed, something nearby. She swiftly went to ground in a place that overlooked the track from both directions, the pistol crossbow in one hand and her puukko knife in the other. She settled and watched. Anything hostile approaching would be dead without even noticing, or if friendly, would not notice her until she made herself known.

Then jumped as she heard the voice from nearby. From behind and to the left. Perkele, she'd been watching the track. But whoever it was, they were good…

"Madam? Please let me reassure you I'm friendly. I'm not asking you to put the weapons down until you've reassured yourself we're friends. We've been following you. Ever since you, er, descended to earth."

Kiiki frowned. The voice sounded Ankh-Morporkian, refined and educated.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.

"Fair question. I know you're Air Watch and you need to get back to your squadron. I'm sure there are people there who are worried about you."

" _Juuuu…"_ Kiiki said, drawing out the affirmative in a drawl. She thought of Marina. _Boot-faced old Ruskki is probably frantic by now…I keep telling her it doesn't hurt to crack a smile every so often…_

"But. You are?"

"Fair question. Roger Forbishley. Guild of Assassins."

"Heard about you. Come out where I can see you."

"Why don't we both come out at the same time to where we can see each other?" Roger offered.

They did. Kiiki met the Man In Black and was introduced to his companions. They were men who knew the Lancre forest. Huntsmen, foresters, and lumberjacks who'd heard about the massacre at Hot Dang. Kiiki then felt even more at home as she moved and occasionally fought alongside them. They were looking, she discovered, for the other young woman who'd been forced down. Eventually they heard singing. Kiiki frowned.

"I know that language." she said. " _And_ the song."

* * *

The magic carpets had brought stores and people to the Chalk Command. Irena Politek didn't feel so desperately isolated now. And in one sense it felt absurd and surreal. They were fighting a war, but everyday life was going on all around her. She heard the train passing through Twoshirts, that had come out of Ankh-Morpork, for instance; somewhere people were getting on and off trains and going about everyday life as usual, unaffected by the war.

Irena suddenly remembered that in normal circumstances she wore Watch badge 587. Ensuring normal life could go on without fear and anxiety – well, _preventable_ fear and anxiety – was the duty of the Watch.

 _ **To serve and to protect.**_

It was exactly what they were doing here, even if taken to extremes. Irena wondered if they'd moved to the other Watch motto, the one Fred Colon quoted

 _ **Fabricati Diem, PVNC.**_

She shrugged. Whatever it was, it was a police action.

The railway was probably safe from Elven attack. Given how much iron went into it. And it occurred to her that the railway was a continuous track made of steel. A barrier. Elves could never cross it on foot. The idea interested her and she speculated on the implications of this for a while. Barriers, hundreds of miles long, only four foot six inches between them, a few inches high – and impassable to Elves.

"Hey, _Krasnaya Zvezda_!"

Irena grinned. New pilots had arrived with the carpets. Old friends, too.

She greeted Tatiana Grigorenko with a whoop and a Cossack hug.

The new pilot, Bethany Hargreaves, looked at them with wide-eyed startledness. The two women who were dressed strangely, who were greeting each other in that spiky foreign language.

Tatiana nudged Irena.

"Who's the _devyushka_?"

"New pilot. Hey, I had to do _something_ to get the numbers up. I think she'll do, with a bit of training."

"Were you and me that young once?"

"Might have been. Can't remember. Any news?"

"Some strange things came off that train. Saw them setting off to the clacks tower. The one the _Servants of Koschei_ damaged."

Tatiana briefly touched metal.

" _Da_. The _кики́мора_."

Irena touched metal.

"Let's go and see." Tatiana said.

" _Da_. Take the new girl. We got two, by the way. I've put the other on bedrest for the moment. She…" Irena paused. "Let's say she looks at the moment as if she was pulled through a hedge backwards. Caught a few scratches. A little bit dazed. But she'll do too."

Irena nodded to Bethany.

"Grab a broom. We're flying." she said, in Morporkian.

* * *

Nottie Garlick tried to put it out of her head that she was too young and too inexperienced for this sort of thing. She had become the third Pegasus witch. Not by accident, but by camping out at the stables where Irena Politek's mare had become gravid by one of Hobley's stud stallions. A normal horse had mated with a Pegasus mare. Everybody was keen to see what happened next.

Nottie, who had slipped out of her bedroom at the Castle to keep vigil in the stables, had helped deliver the foal. Which had two stubby little wings on its back just behind the shoulders, as yet unfeathered. The foal had taken to her.

And the stern-looking Olga Romanoff and her friend Irena, the snarkier one with the wicked sense of humour, had conferred and said " _Horoscho_."

Olga had then looked at Nottie.

"It appears we now have a pupil witch, _devyuschka_."

Nottie realised that despite her years, this had made her the third-ranking senior pilot in the Service. And even Marina Raskova, who at thirty-two was the oldest pilot and positively _ancient_ among girls in their late teens and twenties, was content to look to her for a lead.

Nottie had thought _How would Olga do this?_ and then decided this wasn't the point. Olga wasn't here just now, was she? Until she came back – and Nottie fervently hoped she would – the real pressing question was – _how can Nottie Garlick do this? And how can she do this right?_

Marina, Nottie realised with horror, was looking frightened and terrified at this moment. Something shocking and scary had happened to her. She looked worried sick, bereft even. And this looked worrying on a Squadron member who usually took everything with a sort of stoic indifference. Nottie remembered the rumours. There was no hostility or revulsion or anything. It was accepted a Witch could marry and have the, you know, _thing_ , with a husband. Nanny Ogg had had _the thing_ with quite a few husbands, some of them even her own. Nottie reflected – briefly – that Mum was a Witch and she'd met Dad and _let's not go there…._ So, Witchdom had conceded the principle. If a witch met another Witch, they really liked each other, and wanted to try it the other way – "friend of Alice Band", they said – then that was okay too.

Nottie hoped Kiiki was coming back, too. She'd been seen to chute out, and even hanging from the chute had got one of them. So there was every chance.

Nottie took a chance. She asked Nadezhda Popova to fly wing to Marina and keep an eye on her. She might not dwell on it too much if she's up there flying.

And then she took the depleted Lancre Wing up into combat. Again.

* * *

"Errr… Dorfl?" Irena asked.

The Watch golems had arrived by train along with the engineers and equipment needed for repairing the broken Sheepridge tower. The sound of hammering, drilling and sawing floated down from above as clacksmen and golems worked.

Sergeant Politek. It Is Good To See You Well.

"Reinforcements?"

Miss Dearheart Spoke To Lord Vetinari. He Wishes Us Here To Defend The Clacks Towers Against Attack. He Considers This A Measured And Proportionate Response To An Attack By The Elves On The Legitimate Interests Of Ankh-Morpork. He Stresses We Are Here First And Foremost To Guard The Towers And We Are To Take Any Means Necessary Against Elven Intrusion.

Irena digested this.

"And not here for us?"

We Are All City Watch. If Assisting You Means Our Primary Task Is Not Neglected, We Will Help. But You Must Fend For Yourselves. Lord Vetinari Said This.

"Nice to know we're appreciated." Irena said.

His Lordship And Sir Samuel Did Send Something For You. The Watch Visited The Workshop Of Shrucker And Dave. The Need For Replacement Broomsticks Was Appreciated. Suitable Vehicles Were Requisitioned. Some Are For You And Some Are For Lieutenant Romanoff, When She Returns To Her Duties. We Brought Them Here.

Irena collected four serviceable replacement broomsticks and took them back to Home Farm with her.

* * *

Olga kept the song and the dance going.

"Ой, что-то мы засиделись, братцы ,

Не пора ли нам разгуляться?

 _Da ne pristalo nam sidetʹ po khatam_

 _Dayte konya mne da dobryy mech!"_

They were close in but getting no nearer, and they were captivated. They stank, too. Olga couldn't believe they were letting her do the moves where she tossed the sabre up in the air, let it make two complete circles, then to twirl for a whole body turn and to catch it in her other hand as she came full circle… hadn't it occurred to _anybody_ to grab it or knock it out of the way?

She sang on.

 _I polykhnuli terema da khaty,_

 _Baby vplachʹ da malyye rebyata,_

 _A muzhiki vse, brat za brata,_

 _Vyshli za Rodinu voyevatʹ!_

It dawned on Olga that putting a glamour on something or somebody cut both ways. Humans could do it to Elves too. With music, song and dance.

It also occurred to her that the sabre dance took energy. Usually whoever did the dance would not be called upon to sing at the same time. Sooner or later she was going to run out of breath… _I am going to have to finish this soon…_

Over there on the other side of the clearing. Where the elves were not looking. Was that movement? People trying not to be seen in the undergrowth? Olga decided this was the moment.

 _Ой, да не уж-то Русская рать!_

 _Не постоит за Родину-мать!_

The whirling, swirling, flashing line of the sabre carried on spinning and twisting with the beat of the song. But on _Ruskiya'rat!_ , an elven archer who had got too close fell one way while his head span in another. The second archer lost his head to the music on a very emphatic _Rodiniu'mat_ _!_

Then as Olga sang and danced on, the air was briefly full of arrows. One narrowly missed her. Olga sang and danced on, her sabre felling another elf. The clearing was now full of people. Human people. A man in Assassin black seemed to be directing the battle. Olga danced and sang on. She observed that seemingly ridiculous-looking Swommi hat, soft and rounded and with a bobble on the top, but in black... and the flashing of a long puukko knife... Feegle were getting involved now. Suddenly there were no more Elves. Olga danced on.

A Feegle tugged at Kiiki's britches.

"She has been dancin'. For _elves,_ ye ken. Elves. She canna' stop easily. Ye are also a Hag. Ye must stop her."

"Perkele!" Kiiki swore. She ducked under the sword.

"Listen, you crazy stupid vittuperkele Ruskki bitch!" she shrieked, grabbing Olga's shoulders, heedless of the sabre.

This did the trick. Olga lowered the sword and smiled sheepishly.

"I will overlook the insubordination, Air Constable." she said. " _This_ time."

"And every time."

"I usually do." Olga admitted. "Good to see you, Kiiki."

"You too, Olga. Hey, you did good. One swing, one head. Impressed."

They hugged each other. Kiiki produced her vodka flask. They both took a swig.

"Now put me on a charge."

Olga closed her eyes as she passed it back.

"Never saw it." she said. "Ye gods, Swommi vodka is _strong_. Never heard you causing me a fuck-crazy stupid Russki bitch, either. Went deaf."

"Let's move on." Forbishley said. "Got to get you two ladies back in the air where you matter."

After a while, the Feegle Clacks took over.

"You will permit, Mistresses?" a spokes-Feegle said. A large number of his fellows were gathering, looking expectant.

"Permit what, exactly?" Olga asked. Those were her last words for a while. She heard Kiiki shriek " _Perkele!"_ in surprise as both were pulled down – but respectfully – and they found themselves borne up by lots of Feegle. Their journey was horizontal and very, very, fast as hundreds of Feegle ran forward, passing them on to others at what Olga gathered were clan boundaries. it was actually quite pleasant and exhilarating, if you kept your eyes closed and relaxed. A relay of carrying Feegles soon had them back at Lancre Castle, where the two Witches left behind as reserves were really pleased to see them again. In the circumstances, Olga sanctioned glasses of vodka. It had been a trying day.

"That bundle of brooms is new." Olga observed. "Not standard Watch issue, though." She counted them: six replacements.

"Got delivered by golem an hour or so, ma'am." said the reserve Witch. "Vetinari sent Golems up here to guard the clacks towers. They brought us replacement brooms. Nottie clacksed and said we were losing brooms rather than pilots. Apparently Mr Vimes raided Shrucker and Dave's, and grabbed what he had in stock."

Olga nodded.

"Two are Watch runabouts. The rest, just standard Yaks." she observed. "Mr Schmidt? Can you do anything with them?"

The Teknik saluted and said he reckoned they might take an extra charge, ma'am.

"Do it." she said, in charge again. Then, to nobody in particular

"Dear Gods, I need a bath."

She had been fighting for two days and nights, had danced with the elves and had been ferried by Feegle. Olga was under no illusions. She probably stank.

"Well, I wasn't going to say it, ma'am." the duty Witch answered her.

" _Perkele_. We all do." Kiiki added. " Stink like reindeers in the marsh."

The patrols returned.

Nottie was halfway through saluting and reporting to Olga. There were shrieks of joy. Loud ones. Marina Raskova, usually impassive and hard to move, was laughing, crying and shaking all at once. She grabbed and kissed Kiiki in a way that was completely unambiguous. The others tried not to notice this.

"Told you I'd be back, boot-face." Kiiki said. They kissed again.

Olga shook her head.

"Nottie, are there bathrooms in this pace we can use?" she asked.

"Yes, you _do_ whiff a bit."

"Thank you for the personal observation." Olga said, tartly.

Nottie grinned.

"I'll go and talk to Mum. See if we can scrounge up some hot water. Won't be long."

"You can go first, ma'am." Nadezhda said, helpfully. "Call it a privilege of rank." There was universal agreement to this.

Olga, currently without a broom, later picked the best of the replacements. She recognised it as one that had been undergoing repairs in the tech shed, noted it had one of the new Technomantic Devices attached to it and recalled it was something the Watch had been trialling. The idea was that it was a psychological thing: when you were pursuing a suspect, you switched it on. The Device, augmented by the passage of air in the slipstream, triggered a very loud noise that left the suspect in no doubt _whatever_ that the Watch was after them. It was based on one of the old Dwarf war cries and made a high, strident, _dee-dah!_ two-tone noise.

Olga looked at the name, with the usual approximate Ankh-Morporkian approach to spelling, engraved in the metal of the device.

 **SYREN no 1.**

She shrugged, making a mental note to have a Teknik dismantle it from the broom later, as not needed here. When there was time. Then, after a heavenly bath – she hoped she hadn't left _too_ black a tide mark in the enamel of Queen Magrat's personal bathroom – she took out a patrol. And discovered the bloody damn thing could not be turned off once activated. **(3)**

* * *

Over in the Chalk, Irena Politek had run into trouble. She screamed with frustrated rage as Hanna von Strafenburg and Bethany Hughes did the one thing they'd been briefed never to do. Chasing down two Elves – it was telling that airborne elves were now refusing combat with Air witches and running from the sight of them – Hanna and her wingman, in the heat of the chase, followed them over the standing stones of the Chalk. And vanished.

"nyet! No, no, NO!" Irena swore.

Her close-defence Feegle pulled at her tunic hem.

"We need to go in, Mistress. We'll have them out again. Aye. Feegle know the way!"

Irena considered. Then pulled her troops together.

"We're going in." she called. "If they won't fight us out here – we'll hit them in their space. _V'put_!"

 _Let's go._

The three others fell in behind the broomstick, the stand-out one with red stars outlined in gold painted on each side of the staff. They'd follow Red Star and take it to the enemy.

* * *

 _ **To be continued…**_

Next episode: how Hanna blunts the elves. How they all got counted in and they all got counted out again. And the main battle begins.

 **(1)** Finnish readers, and I know there's at least one, help. Is there a slightly off-hand derogatory word for "Russian" that might parallel to "Ivan"? Or even "Ivanka"? There must be one. Also following up a reference to a Finnish Air force slogan and drinking toast from the Winter War that equates to "Goodbye, Sanity!" A vague memory that it's spelt "Tollkku Pois" or something close – I just haven't been able to pin it down. Filled the space with a blind idiot translation from Google Translate.

 **(2)** Kiiki did indeed find herself humming a theme. It was one that called for full orchestration, lots of percussion, and a full-voiced choir singing a stirring nationalistic hymn. From her point of view, it was preferable to the one with the black swan on the ominous dark lake.

 **(3)** You may be sure she was called "Syren" by the others after this, admittedly covertly. There. Back story.

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 _ **Shrucker and Dave:**_ a broomstick workshop underneath a railway arch in Ankh-Morpork, referenced in _ **The Shepherd's Crown.**_

 _ **Kukimori:**_ not Japanese – sounds like they should be – but a species of Elf from Russian folklore who have a sort of entitled-bastard malevolence about them. I've taken a liberty or two here – strictly speaking they're all female and only come in ones. If a _kukimora_ takes up residence in your kitchen, you have a nasty parasite to deal with, one who will sweetly convince you of her absolute right to be there and that your duty is to keep her well-fed, happy and entertained.

 _Koschei,_ or _Koskey,_ also known as Koschei the Deathless, is a nasty evil Wizard in Russian folklore who may be a survival of an old God of death and malevolence. In some tales, elves serve him. If I've got it right, a magnificent Russian animated film which tells a great story, even if your command of Russian is sketchy and minimal, features his seeking to overthrow the good and valiant _**Prince Vladimir**_. (2006) Find it. Watch it. I want a version with English subs.


	9. The big Raid

_**The Price of Flight – part nine**_

 _ **The Big Wing Raid**_

 _ **V0.1. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space. In "The Shepherd's Crown", after months and weeks of escalating raids into Lancre, the elven leader, Lord Lankin, finally mounts his major attack only to discover he cannot get his forces very far outside the Dancers. He has made the error of telegraphing his intentions with all the small raids beforehand which have largely been mopped up piecemeal. The witches and the defenders of Lancre are prepared, have organised their forces, and meet him at the Dancers: the fighting is a hard and nasty but short field battle that goes on for some hours, intensively, throughout the night but is finally, conclusively, won by Lancre's makeshift Army under Queen Magrat. So – apart from a few glimpses, perhaps – I can't really think of too many ways to describe the Air Witches' involvement here.**_

 _ **I know Terry was run out of time and was trying hard to get some sort of concluding book out before he died. What you read is understandably a bit rushed and perfunctory towards the end and the reader does wonder what sort of a book a Terry Pratchett at the full height of his abilities might have finished: it reads as if he is sketching out the main events and leaving a few things, tantalisingly, unfinished. The final battle reads – well, like a story intended for children under ten. It has a lot of whimsy and not enough of the sort of harder "realism" a different Pratchett might have introduced: it has a sort of David Walliams quality about it with, perish the thought, forced jollity which feels out of place for a desperate engagement. It had me thinking of the TV show "Xena; Warrior Princess" where a typical show would have Xena upping the body count quite considerably by the end – but nobody ever bleeds and the mooks, once killed, are just background props who were never really characters in the first place.**_

 _ **We start, I think, with the Air Witches, coming back down to the ground, and remembering what organisation they belong to most of the time…**_

 _ **Also discovered, with great satisfaction, a pioneering British aeroengineer called Beatrice Shilling, wondered why the hell I'd never heard of her before (because she isn't a man?) - who overcame a design flaw in the Merlin engine which, if it hadn't been rectified, would have meant iconic British planes like the Spitfire might have not got the reputation they did. Thank you to reader Dr Frankenburger. I now have A Challenge.**_

 _ **The Dancers, Lancre. After the battle.**_

Olga Romanoff looked around her. She noted, abstractly, that it was beginning to rain. The weather fitted the desolation around her. Churned ground, elven bodies in various states of repair, abandoned weapons, dazed people, both witches and civilians, not believing they were still alive, and triumphant Feegle beginning victory chants.

She shook her head. The fighting was all over here, then. It had to be.

Olga studied the elf in front of her. She felt him attempting a glamour. Even at this late stage where he had been humbled several times over.

 _You can still be Tsarina. Why are you fighting for a country which is not yours, in the service of tinpot nobility which you already socially outrank? Sam Vimes. Who is he? A city peasant who struck lucky and got above himself. Who married a desperate spinster with a title. Vetinari. Cunning as a rat on top of a stinking city which is bankrupt in every way. Go to your people, Tsarina Olga, and lead them! That's if you are capable…._

Olga scowled and strode forward. Angry, she grabbed the elf, shook him, and slapped his face.

"Be told, brat! I do what I do because I choose to. I respect Mr Vimes. I admire Lady Sybil. As for being Tsarina? I reject it. I do not want it. _I never wanted it!_ The only empire I want is the sky. To fly with people who think like me and love the sky too. And even then I respect that the sky is only mine on loan. On sufferance. That is the price of flight!"

Olga let Lord Lankin slump. She controlled her anger.

"You are a fool to continue tempting me with something I do not want. Which I know I would fail at if I ever tried. Listen, brat. I fail in the sky, only I am dead. I fail as Tsarina, I take a people with me. I have the name, yes. But I have not the right to carry others into death with me. I renounce the title. I renounced it years ago. _All_ the titles."

Olga remembered, and reached into a pocket. She brought out Ankh-Morpork City Watch badge no 588 and clipped it to the right place on her breastplate. Wearing Watch badges had been considered to be out of place on this assignment. Till now.

"I could kill you. _Easily_. But there are now limits. _Govno,_ I do not know if I can make this stick. But, Elf known as Lord Lankin, I now arrest you for conspiracy to cause breach of the peace, multiple counts of murder, grievous bodily harm, criminal damage and …" Olga paused. A clear picture came into her mind of Mr Vimes. He was grinning.

"And of Being Bloody Stupid."

She nodded to the other Air Policewomen. One even had a set of handcuffs, and passed them to Olga. Lord Lankin shrank back.

"Those are iron!" he pleaded.

She shrugged.

"Steel, certainly. Do not make me add a count of Resisting Arrest."

And the elf-lord fell into a moaning slump as he was led away to join the others. Lots of Elves, unwilling to fight any more or show defiance, were clustered together under guard. A stack of discarded yarrow stalks was piled some distance away. **(1)** It was a damp grey anticlimactic end to the days and nights of air war.

"What happens next?" Nottie Garlick asked. Olga made another shrug.

"I do not know. Your mother and the other senior witches are conferring. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if I have any authority here to make such an arrest. Lancre law applies here, not Ankh-Morporkian. It is possible I have exceeded my authority. Whatever happens is now out of my hands but remind your mother and father that I would like the handcuffs back."

Olga called her force together.

"One last flight. There is no news out of the Chalk. We will proceed there. We defeat the elves there. Then our action is done, and we are Watchwomen once more. Mount up!"

An Air Witch asked Olga for a quiet private word. They conferred quietly together. Olga felt a sudden desperate sadness. Then they hugged, kissed, and mounted up for the flight to the Chalk.

The only problem for Olga on the flight was that bloody siren. Or _syren_. It started the moment they were airborne and it just would not shut up.

 _ **A disputed borderland on the metaphysical edges of The Chalk.**_

Irena Politek knew she was in trouble. She'd deliberately crossed into the Fairy Realm to rescue two of her pilots who had strayed there. The intention was to get them out. The Feegle behind her was an older, more serious, Pictsie who had some of the skills of a Gonnagle. He had got her in. He assured her he and his fellows could get them out again.

But in the interim they had elves to fight. Lots of them. In their own realm.

Irena zigged, zagged and evaded as seven or eight elves got on her tail. Arrows and darts zipped past. She felt a definite lurch, scrape and clunk as one narrowly missed lodging in the staff of her broom, cutting a gouge in the wood.

She rather hoped she was buying time for the rest of the Flight to get onto the Elves behind her. And she had a distinct impression she was being steered, or chased, away from the portal where they had entered. It was cold here, and the landscape underneath was uniformly white. The sky was grey and not just any grey, the sort of steely-bluey-grey that promises more snow.

"This will not do, mistress." Her flight-Feegle said, behind her. Irena risked a moment to look over her shoulder and aim a fireball at a pursuer. Then she jinked again.

"It will not. No." she agreed.

"I have an idea, Mistress. Leave it with me."

"Wh…" Irena began.

Then there was a dizzying, disorientating, shift in reality. Irena blinked and realised she was looking into the improbable colours and geometries of Feegle Space, the non-dimension used when her Pegasus was being craw-stepped to another destination on the disc.

"..at did you have…"

The old Feegle was counting.

"Yin, tan, tethera, pethera… get ye ready… _pump_!"

There was a flash, and they were back. Exactly, as far as Irena could reckon, where they'd been five seconds before. Except that her elven pursuers were now in front of her.

"..in mind?"

Irena was now throwing a spread of fireballs.

And her battle-flight regrouped. She saw two brooms abruptly pop back into place in previously empty air, and grinned. The Feegle had evidently thought about this…

Then she looked down and her smile faded.

Elves. Drawing up in battle order. On the ground. Lots of Elves. Hundreds, maybe…

Then she looked up.

" _Where do they get so many yarrow stalks? It's not as if they can grow yarrow in six feet of snow!"_

Irena looked to her small command.

"We can slow them up a bit." she said.

Darleen replied, laconic and Fourecksian:

"Nice knowing you bunch of bastards. It was okay."

They studied a lot of elves in the air. Irena gave up trying to calculate how many they were outnumbered by. No point, really. And that was an Army underneath. Infantry and cavalry.

Hanna von Strafenburg, reduced to a regular Watch broom since the MIG-21 had run out of its special ammunition, looked determined and grave.

"I have an idea." she called to Irena. "Please give me cover as best you can."

Then she zipped off on her own. Flying straight towards the elven army.

"HANNA!" Irena screamed. Then she winced.

" _Govno_. It's up to you if you follow me."

It might not have been the best rallying cry in the history of warfare. But all four brooms followed her as they sought to give top cover for whatever sort of attack Hanna was going to make. Nobody hesitated.

* * *

It was dark by the time Olga Romanoff got the rest of the Air Watch to the Chalk. They found no activity and hardly anybody to be seen. Olga dismounted, and heard the familiar sound of a Teknik working on a broom, hammering, whistling and snatches of Dwarf-song. She went to the sound.

"You know, you girls don't half give these brooms a battering." the Teknik said, without looking up. "I'm nowhere near getting this one air-ready. Needs quite a few bristles replacing after that elf tried to light it up…"

He looked up. Then straightened up.

"Ah. You might be Lieutenant Romanoff?" he asked.

"No "might" about it." Olga replied. "Report."

Sally Treadaway ran into the shed.

"Ma'am, this is Mr van Fokker. Irena… Sergeant Politek… recruited him as a Teknik. Errr"

Olga recognised Emily Maitland behind her. And the third girl, who she didn't recognise and who was looking dazed.

"We're the reserve, ma'am. After a while there weren't any more elves coming out of the Stones. The ones we saw didn't want to fight and just ran back into the stones. Errr. Hanna and Bethany sort of, err, chased a couple back into the Stones."

"Go on." Olga invited her. "Who exactly is Bethany?"

"New recruit, ma'am. Came with Matilda here. Sergeant Politek signed them both up."

Olga remembered. She nodded to Matilda.

"I'll speak to you later." she said. She returned to Sally.

"Carry on."

"Sergeant Politek said she was going to get them out, ma'am. She told us to stay put here and she took the others. Errr. Darleen, Tatiana, and.."

Sally's voice trailed off.

"Did she." Olga said.

"She took Feegle with her, ma'am. Some of them were gonnagles. The ones with the extra skills. Err."

Olga nodded, then turned on her heel and walked out.

Sally breathed out.

"Well, _that_ seemed to go okay." she said to Matilda, who nodded mutely.

Olga noted the MIG-21, inert and unattended outside. Apparently, it had run out of ammo. Hanna had blazed a gleeful way through it until there was nothing left to blaze. Olga accepted that. She spoke to the carpet pilots, who were brewing coffee, for want of something to do. She told them to brew enough for everyone, and to stand by.

Fuming with irritation, Olga Romanoff led six of her pilots into the air, leaving the rest as a reserve. She had also sent a runner to put the word out, that she'd quite like a word with Tiffany Aching if that was possible.

Then she waited to see what happened next. She noted more and more Chalk Witches and others were making their way to the Stones. The air felt hot and oppressive, as if a thunderstorm was imminent. And nobody with even the slightest magical power would doubt. It was going to happen soon. Out of these stones. The big battle.

The Air Witches manoeuvred for the height and position to dive on anything coming up and, as Olga put it, to beat the living _govno_ out of it. They waited. They were ready.

* * *

Irena Politek and five air witches dived and fireballed into the packed ranks of Air Elves. As Irena expected, there wre too many of them in too relatively small a space to manoeuvre effectively. For now. They seemed surprised such a small number of enemies were actually attacking them, for one thing.

Irena felt the glamour beating down on her, stronger than it had ever beaten down on her before. Furiously, she kept the reply going on her mind in a repeating loop

 _Your mother. Your mother. Your mother…_ **(2)**

A long way below her, Hanna von Strafenburg flew fifty feet or so above the ground. She was focusing the power she would need for this. She was also aware that somewhere nearby and getting closer, there was a really powerful Elf, a Lord. She had to do this quickly…

She focused and released the power. She sang the spell:

 _Lass es wachsen, Lass es wachsen..._

And in a place fuelled by a sort of magic, the permanent winter snow of Fairyland fountained up and began taking a distinct form.

Hanna von Strafenburg could do fireballs. It was a basic magic-user's skill. She did this readily enough. But her _real_ power in magic was something else. Something she was really good at. Out there in the real world, she needed the raw material: she could not conjure it from nothing and she certainly couldn't do it in July or August.

Here in Fairyland, the raw material was abundant.

Irena looked down. She saw the snowmen, in long serried ranks, rising from the ground. The snow fountained and churned and flurried as she flew, ranks forming in her wake. The elves were watching too. Magic and enchantment fascinated them. It gave the fighting air policewomen a respite, for one thing. All air duelling ceased, as a snowman army rose up.

Irena motioned with her sabre.

 _Down._

As they descended the emerging details came into focus. These were not the sort of friendly affable snowmen little girls dreamt of, best friends to lonely children who promised exciting adventure. These snowmen might take you on a journey. But you would soon wish they hadn't.

They were in perfect ranks and radiated intent.

Irena and Tatiana registered, in a sort of bowel-chilling ancestral memory, that they had been sculpted to look as if they were wearing helmets. Like absurd coalscuttles. A helmet that radiated Essence of Helmet-ness. A helmet style that Far Überwaldeans were hard-wired to feel very threatened by.

Hanna came to a halt at one end of her army. A tall snowman who, absurdly, appeared to be wearing a monacle, looked up at her and asked an unspoken question. Irena pointed at the elves. The snow-general nodded.

" _Auf Marsch! Vorwarts! Fur dem Seig! Heil!"_ Hanna screamed.

And her snow-army began parade-marching forwards. Towards the Elves.

" _Slava bogu."_ Irena said. "Dear Gods."

Tatiana Grigorenko, who had flown next to her, nodded.

"An army of zombie snowmen. Hearts of ice. No emotions. Marching in that silly constipated way. And in perfect ranks. Wearing _those_ helmets." she said.

" _Da._ Fritzes." Irena agreed. "Our people also parade-march like that, by the way."

" _Da_." Tatiana agreed. "But that shows perfect parade discipline and the stern resolution of the Rus people. On _them_ it shows they are stupid Fritz zombies."

"Either way, we get out. I suspect Hanna has slowed the enemy. And we need to get her. That amount of magic expended is not good for her."

"With you, Mistress." Irena's flight-Feegle agreed. "Steer this way."

The snowman army marched on the elves. The airborne elves dived to attack it. Disregarded, Irena got her small command together, remembering, with Tatiana, to grab Hanna, who was now slumping over her stick and in danger of falling into the snow below. Darleen, coming up behind, recovered the stick.

And people outside the Stones saw six Air Witches, one seemingly wounded and slumped unconscious, hurtle into existence into the everyday world.

" _Get ready!"_ Irena screamed to the Chalk's army. _"They're coming!"_

She now had to report to Olga, Irena realised. This was not going to be pleasant…

It took Lord Peaseblossom about three quarters of an hour to restore order, fighting his way through panicked Elves, angry that those impudent women had _dared_ raid into his domain, angry with the ice-witch who had used his own world against him, angry with the mindless army she had created that was slowing and damaging his forces.

He decided the ice-woman would die, very slowly and painfully.

The snowmen had thinned his army, sent large parts of it running in fear and chaos, were fighting Elves in response to the imperative command that had created them. But they were no match for Lord Peaseblossom. Under his command, in his own land, they inexorably melted into the snowy waste again. The one who appeared to be their general, the one in the absurd monocle, the one who, if only Peaseblossom had known, Hanna had sculpted from a memory of her own father, a near perfect likeness: _that_ one had been boiled into steam **. (3)**

They had served their purpose.

Peaseblossom led a far smaller Elven army into the Chalk. One demoralised by the audacious air attack, and further frightened and unsettled by the snowmen.

And it met everything the Chalk could throw at it. **(4)** That account is elsewhere in the annals of the Chalk.

"We'll talk later." Olga said to Irena, tartly.

And the air witches fought as hard as anybody else.

Olga Romanoff knew, without a doubt, at least one more shoe was going to fall that night and perhaps a second. Two witches had asked for quiet face-time with their commanding officer. The first had been absolutely certain she wasn't going to come back; the second hadn't been so sure. But one had definitely had Advance Notice. That was definite. When you were a magic user, you _knew._ And, Olga knew, it would happen in this final decisive battle.

She envied military commanders without magical ability who were not burdened with things like this. And it led to the agonising decision. Did she tell everybody else that one of their number was going to die tonight? Especially that person's wing-mate? There certainly wasn't the time or leisure – or the inclination- for a Going-Away Party.

Olga finally elected not to tell. She didn't want everyone to go into battle in with that agonising awareness. That should be the commanding officer's burden and only hers.

When Sally Treadaway died, she was halfway prepared for it.

It was one of those things that happen in a confused fight. Young witches on the ground had been throwing fireballs up at airborne Elves. And they were getting careless. Her pilots were getting tired.

Above the battle, Sally flew right into the ground fire. A huge explosion as the fireball hit the magical field of her broomstick. A few blazing meteors. And nothing.

 _Sally wasn't sure,_ Olga thought. _And it was pure accident and bad luck. Friendly fire from the ground._

She was glad when the rain really set in, with the promise of thunder and lightning. The air battle was almost over. Her pilots were now looking for yarrow stalks that were not in the sky any more. And a lightning strike on a broom in flight could be destructive. As the rain intensified and distant lightning got nearer, she recalled everybody and reorganised them to fight in the ground.

"We all have pistol crossbows and reloads." Olga said. "Use them. You also have swords and knives. You know how to use those. And of course we all have fireballs. But only use them when you are sure of the target."

She would have said more. Then Tatiana and Nadezhda appeared. They were both riding horses; the big black Elven warhorses which were usually spitting, malicious, bundles of fury. They were perfectly under the control of their riders.

"Hey, Olga! Plenty of horses for the taking!" Nadhezda called. "No riders. Salvage."

" _And_ they don't have sirens on." Tatiana added, pointedly. Olga winced. She was _sure_ a lot of witches' memories of the battle would be that bloody Watch siren that had dopplered in the air over the battlefield. Vexingly, on landing in the increasing rain, Olga had kicked the damn thing, hard. It had then stopped.

"Elf horses? How do you get to ride them?" Olga asked.

Tatiana gave her a pitying look.

"We're _Cossacks_. We can ride _anything_. Besides, get on their backs wearing steel armour, and they're docile. Easy."

Olga reflected. She looked at Tatiana. Who was going to die tonight. She'd had the Message. _She is Rus and Cossack like me. And three others. Maybe we_ _ **can**_ _have a going-away party._

"Irena? Marina? We're going to catch our horses. Nottie, you and Kiiki take charge here. No silly risks. Just look after people. Kiiki. I require that vodka flask you were expressly instructed not to carry. _Spassibo_."

The five riders each took a drink. Olga passed the flask back to Kiiki.

"I thank you. Now wear it where I cannot see it."

Olga smiled.

"horoscho. Now we ride."

* * *

A little while later, another memory of the battle was etched in the minds of people who witnessed it. The five horsewomen in the outlandish fur caps brought a touch of the foreign and the exotic to the battlefield. They rode captured Elven horses against their previous owners. They laughed and joked and punctuated their riding with cries of "Hip" and "Hup" and " _Ya Kazack!"_ as they rode down isolated groups of Elves who were still resisting.

Tiffany Aching was busy elsewhere. But when she heard of it, she nodded quietly and said "Better not inquire. This is one of _those_ primal memory things going on. And in any case they're fighting on our side."

The Chalk saw something very rarely seen, if at all, on this side of the Hub. A full-blown all-out Cossack charge. Glamours thrown by desperate elves bounced off: there was simply no way for them to get in. Cossacks are a long-established fighting race. They live to ride and fight. They have a mystique. And no other kind of glamour was going to get past _that_. Elves realised this, belatedly, as the sabres rose and fell.

Thunder crashed and lightning fell. Elsewhere on the field a queen died, a King rose in wrath, and Peaseblossom in his turn died. And the fighting and the war ended.

"Thought you were going to die tonight." Nadezhda said to Tatiana.

Tatiana shrugged as the rain poured down.

"I know I am. Had the Message."

"But you're still breathing."

"Da." Tatiana agreed. "Maybe sometimes it screws up."

She lifted her sabre and saluted the sky.

"I'm still here!"

The sky answered. With lightning. A Cossack warrior was soaked to the skin and raising a long length of metal.

TATIANA ELENAVICHNIYA GRIGORENKO?"

" _Govno_. It was the lightning, wasn't it?"

"I'M AFRAID SO. LIGHTNING MAY HAVE COME AT THE CALL OF TIFFANY ACHING. BUT ONCE UNLEASHED IT IS INDISCRIMINATE.

"So I'm dead. Govno."

YOU DIED FIGHTING. ON HORSEBACK. WITH A SABRE IN YOUR HAND. WITH NO MORE ELVES TO FIGHT YOU CHALLENGED THE LIGHTNING STORM. A COSSACK DEATH.

Tatiana brightened.

"That's true. No regrets. It was good."

YOU KNOW, I WAS SURPRISED TO BE CALLED TO YOU TONIGHT? YOU WERE MEANT TO DIE TOMORROW NIGHT, TATIANA. AT THE CELEBRATION PARTY AT LANCRE CASTLE. AFTER CONSUMING A LOT OF VODKA, YOU WERE DUE TO MEET ME, SHORTLY AFTER ATTEMPTING TO DEMONSTRATE IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THE STEPS OF THE SABRE DANCE, AT THE TOP OF THE GREAT STAIRCASE.

Tatiana considered this. Then her spirit grinned.

"Hey, that's a Cossack death too. So what's next?"

Death heard hoofbeats in the distance, getting closer.

HAVE I INTRODUCED YOU TO MY COLLEAGUE, WAR? I BELIEVE HE AND HIS AGENTS WILLTAKE IT FROM HERE .

 _ **To be concluded in one more "aftermath" chapter…**_

* * *

 **(1)** The Air Witches would take some as trophies and for the Tekniks to research on, but the majority would be burnt.

 **(2)** no small thing. Swearing in Russian, I have read, is called "mat" – "mother". Because one of the strongest Russian swearies, more or less, roughly and incompletely translates as _"your mother"._ Using this in conversational Russian is like dropping a nuke, unless you know that Russian very well indeed.

 **(3)** Yes, hands up: thinking "Castle Wolfenstein" and all those computer games/ novels/films of Nazi German super-soldiers being resurrected from the grave to fight again… Hanna might have quipped that for once her father had shown _some_ sort of warmth, if only briefly.

 **(4)** See the account in _**The Shepherd's Crown**_ _._ Stolid Chalk folk with whatever weapons came to hand, lots of witches including those who fought in the air, old men of the, err, _ **Home Guard,**_ mad inventors with ideas, Tiffany Aching helped by a renegade elf-queen, and channeling the very power of the Chalk itself in a thunderstorm. The elves had no chance.

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 _ **The Big Wing Raid:**_ this was Douglas Bader's idea in 1940-41. Bader (got to say this for completion, even though the story is well known) lost both legs in a peacetime air crash. He refused to believe he was done as a pilot and chalked up a succession of firsts: he was the first man to do what had hitherto been thought impossible, which was to walk again on two artificial legs. Nobody thought this possible for a double amputee, but Bader scorned a wheelchair and proved medical opinion wrong. Then he got back into the air again, also hitherto thought impossible. Then he got into an RAF fighter plane again, just in time to start shooting down Germans. Shot down over France, he then began trying to escape and nearly managed it, ending up in Colditz, the bad-boys camp for hard cases. As the Battle of Britain wound down, he loudly advocated for Britain going on the offensive where it could and argued if the Germans had operated fighters over Southern England, we could do the same over northern France. Bader's "Big Wings" of fifty to seventy fighters at a time then began sweeping over France being hooligans to the Germans, following the philosophy of taking the air war over _their_ turf and not ours. The British air offensive into Northern France was helped in 1941 as Luftwaffe strength moved East for the attack on Russia: Bader's being shot down didn't stop it muc


	10. Coming Home

_**The Price of Flight – part ten**_

 _ **After the war – who will we be fighting for?**_

 _ **V0.5. As with everything, it has room for revision. Watch this space.**_

 _ **Title from a song by Gary Moore.**_

 _ **The end of the Lancre War cycle, then back to "the present" and the logistic problems of flying elephants.**_

Originl intention - not all of this is covered in these 6,000 words but it will come. As always, you come up with a plan and its realisation takes you on a detour. It was to have covered - breaing the news to families; readjusting to everyday policing and Pegasus work; Olga tackles two lots of personal business; (Natasha and Eddie); four funerals, and a very unique wedding.

Epilogue: remembrance. This bit features Bekki.

It's taken a diversion I didn't initially intend, but maybe setting up a plot line or two for further tales; how Vetinari might have to take a resurgent "Russia" into account, run by Grand Duchesses, perhaps, who can think further and more clearly than their fathers and who set about reforming and unifying – well, the elves put the idea into both their heads. But it won't work out the way the elves wanted it. Also returning to Natasha Romanoff, a character somewhat under-used so far (yes, Nimbus, your idea) and developing her as a slightly imperious Rus noblewoman with a calculating streak as well as a mean way with a bow. Something of the Avenger about her but not a one-for-one correspondence: with a spiky relationship with her cousin, not close friends by any means, lots of needle and disagreement, but two people who can work together.

Ideas about long-gone Tsarinas, all called Catherine… and as yet no room for an itinerant Wizard called Gaz Putin who in his time exerted an influence. (Ra Ra Gaz Putin…)

* * *

There had been one last surprise for the soul of Tatiana Grigorenko. War, dressed this time as a Cossack Ataman, had shook her hand vigorously and said he was damn proud of you, classic death in battle for one of you people, they'd be singin' songs about that, now yer lift out's arrived.

Tatiana looked up. Her first response was to push the Valkyrie out of the way and demand her deathright as a Cossack, which was to ride her own horse. The lightning stroke that had killed her had also killed the captured Elven horse she had been riding; Tatiana had thought it was a damn shame, twice over as the soul of the horse had tottered to its spectral hooves, blinked, and looked at Death. Who had shaken his head, waved a bony hand, and watched its essence disperse into vapour and nothing.

NOT OF THIS WORLD, Death had explained. IT BELONGS ELSEWHERE.

" _Nichevo_." Tatiana had replied. "Pity. I could have ridden that. You know. To where I'm going."

And now she looked up at the Valkyrie who was grinning down at her. You had to admit, with blonde hair like that, and an ancestry like hers, she was perfect in look… and name…

"Sigrid?" Tatiana said, disbelieving.

Sigrid Helgasdotttir, lately an Air Witch, grinned down.

"They were recruiting." she explained. "They said I had exactly the right experience and employment profile. And apparently being dead is no disqualification. I'm still not sure how it works, but while I'm on shift I get some sort of bodily substance again for coming into this world."

There was a silence.

"Hop up." Sigrid said. "If you're good, I might even let you drive for a while."

Tatiana vaulted up.

"There are still a couple of job vacancies." War said, genially. "No hurry. You can settle in, then fill in the application forms."

And Tatiana Grigorenko passed into her Afterlife.

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, after the war is over:**_

Two women met for lunch in one of the better and more socially select restaurants in the City. They were related, certainly, but could not be described as especially close. A casual observer might have taken them for sisters. The same casual observer might also have reflected that a relationship between sisters can be complex, tumultuous, marked by sibling rivalry, a competitive streak, and a sense of one-up-man-ship that can propel the most alpha of alpha males a long way down the Ephebian alphabet **.(1)**

The two women meeting ostensibly for a civilised friendly lunch are actually cousins. It doesn't make it any less hazardous that this is the sister-sister dynamic working out at one step removed. Both are only daughters; in fact, only children. Each would argue that she was deprived of the chance to have this sort of spiky interaction with an actual sister, so this is the next best thing. Their fathers might be brothers, but are barely on speaking terms with each other. It could be argued that a _really big_ family disagreement is there, largely unspoken, in the background.

When that casual observer realises each is Heiress to a Grand Duchy of her very own and bigger stakes still are involved, the said casual observer might ask for the bill, please, waiter, then settle up, and leave as quickly as possible.

"Krasnostop Zolotovsky." one of the two said, sipping her wine.

" _Da_." said the other. "From Novyisvet."

She was reading the label on the bottle; she did not have her cousin's extensive education in fine wine appreciation, which was held to be an indispensable skill of her profession. **(2)**

"An acceptable red."

" _Da."_

Both sipped their wine leisuredly. Eye contact was made.

"So, Olga Anastacia. What's next for you?"

Olga, in everyday City Watch working uniform, glared at her cousin Natasha, who as always was in impeccable, smart and very expensive-looking Assassin black **. (3)**

"I visit families. Of women lost under my command. I begin training new recruits and replacement pilots. I do the job which is in front of me as a Watchwoman and a Pegasus Service pilot. Most immediately, at two this afternoon I do the Pegasus Service duty flight to Rimwards Howondaland. Where it will be ten o'clock in the morning when I arrive."

Natasha Romanoff sipped her wine.

"Well. Just time for lunch, first."

She set down the wine glass.

"Vetinari is not promoting you, then? In thanks for sterling leadership and bravery in combat with a battle won? How very grateful of him."

Olga shrugged.

"It is possible. Mr Vimes pointed out all the Captain positions in the Watch depend on that Captain commanding sufficient numbers to justify the rank. At present my command does not number sufficiently and I agreed I should remain a lieutenant. Lord Vetinari did ask, however, what the threshold is for my receiving a suitable elevation. He then suggested that when my command numbers over a hundred, the rank structure should then be reviewed. So any promotion - not just now."

Olga felt irritated she felt a need to explain to her cousin. Natasha nodded, thoughtfully.

"Lieutenant seems an _awfully_ low rank, though."

Olga bridled slightly, sensing the needle was being applied again.

"You are thinking in military terms. I belong to the Watch. The rank titles have different weight. First Commander Vimes. Then Deputy Commander Carrot, who prefers still to be addressed as Captain. Captain von Überwald is next in rank, she commands all Uniformed personnel, the largest number. Then there is the grade below them, variably honoured with titles like Inspector, Superintendent, and Lieutenant. That is my place. Am I going too fast for you? Inspector Pessimal is in charge of administration and what are called white-collar crimes, financial and tax-related. Superintendent Loudweather commands the Cable Street Particulars, the plainclothes detective force. I am Lieutenant commanding the Air Arm. I also have supervisory responsibility to the Palace for the Pegasus Service and other duties, at the discretion of the Patrician. There are plans to add a River Police and a Mounted Police, who will also in time be commanded by officers in my pay grade. Below us, Fred Colon is Senior Sergeant, the RSM perhaps, and then there are non-commissioned officer grades. There is no direct equivalence, but in military terms my rank and responsibilities might be those of a lieutenant-colonel. You could think of Mr Vimes as a General, although he certainly does not, and Captain Carrot as perhaps a Brigadier. Have I clarified things? _Horoscho_."

Natasha looked thoughtful.

"Fred Colon is the _praporshchik_." she said, mulling the concept. "Or at least the _starshina_. That is amusing."

" _Da."_ Olga agreed. She thought of truly terrifying senior sergeant-majors she had seen. Fred didn't quite fit that mould.

"Which makes the _mouzhik_ girl Irena into your _starshina_. That is perhaps fitting."

"She was reluctant to accept the rank." Olga said. "Vetinari suggested to her that it was entirely her choice to refuse advancement."

"So she took three stripes. With no great rush."

" _Da._ She says one day she will forgive me for it. She is a good _starshina_. Which reminds me."

Olga passed over two pistol crossbows. That had Natasha's initials, НАЛР, monogrammed on the butts.

"I thank you for the loan, freely given. Natasha Alianovna Ledavichnya **(4)** Romanoff, you are not entirely a complete bitch."

Nastasha smiled faintly. "Doctor Smith-Rhodes asked. You do not refuse your former teachers. Not easily."

"Very wise." Olga agreed. Her cousin was still a fairly new graduate Assassin, after all. But one who had come out near the top of her year.

Natasha studied her pistol crossbows.

"Did these draw blood?" she asked.

Olga grinned.

"What, cousin Tasha? You have not yet had occasion to use them in earnest yourself?"

Olga enjoyed her cousin's quickly hidden scowl.

"I prefer the various forms of true bow." Natasha said. Olga nodded, sympathetically.

"So the answer is "no". _Nichevo_. You will be pleased to know they are both bloodied. Caroline Mayapple carried them and scored hits in the final fight."

Natasha changed the subject. She leant forward.

"Cousin Olga? _Really_ three hundred and seventy elves?"

Olga smiled inside. She suspected a lot of the claims, especially for kills in the air, were likely to be just a little bit inflated **.(5)** And there was no precise way of tallying how many they'd got on the ground. Nobody had been there to witness whatever havoc had been wrought by Hanna's audacious act of magic in the Elfworld, for instance. Irena had frankly said that her priority had been to get the hells out while their attention was distracted, and to get medical attention, quickly, for Hanna.

However, she was not going to admit this to her cousin. _Who will no doubt be reporting our conversation later to the Dark Council. And Mr Vimes will casually ask me what my cousin thought important enough to raise in conversation. So he knows what the Assassins consider important enough to want to know, concerning the Air Watch._

"The final figures are open to review. As new information arises. But, and this is not a matter to make light comment about, I lost four people dead and three more wounded. That is grievous to me."

Natasha nodded, and remained silent. They sipped their drinks.

"There was a lot of speculation in the Guild." She admitted. "Lots of talk. You have to understand, this is a whole new way of fighting a war. The Guild is taking a close interest."

Olga shrugged.

"So you are here to ask me." she said. "On behalf of the Guild."

Natasha smiled slightly, with a hint of embarrassment.

"I was approached. Yes." she said.

"There is really no need. I talk openly and frankly with people like Johanna Smith-Rhodes and Alice Band, who are friends. I know they are also Assassins. But I still talk openly and frankly with them, knowing this. Perhaps more openly and frankly than I do to _you_ , perhaps."

"Then, cousin Olga, let me talk openly and frankly to _you_." said Natasha. She took a deep breath.

"I was incautious. I discussed elves and what the Guild knows about them without bothering to touch iron."

Natasha reached out and picked up a table knife.

"I thought it a silly superstition. I also considered that, after hearing tales coming back concerning how you were fighting, that they had more to concern themselves with than an Assassin who did not touch iron on mentioning the name, and in any case nothing happened. I went to bed that night and even thought – I did not touch iron, and they did not come. No matter. I went to sleep."

Olga listened. She supressed a smile. What did Johanna call it? _Over-confidence. Well, we all learn._

"I awoke, or thought I had awoken, to see my former teacher Joan Sanderson-Reeves in the room. You have met her? Then you will know she is frightening."

Olga nodded. She forced herself not to show satisfaction at her cousin's mask of insouciant confidence slipping.

"She stood there with that look on her face. The one that says she considers you to be a horrible slimy little cockroach. The one she uses when you have made an error."

This time, Natasha shuddered slightly. Olga could not resist asking "You saw her use that face often, then?"

" _Da._ When she as good as says "Are we wasting our time and effort here in trying to make an Assassin out of somebody as stupendously slow, stupid and unfit as you? You are a waste of good precious oxygen, Miss Romanoff."

"Ah, so she _did_ say it to you, then. I did wonder."

"Listen, Olga. The woman in my room, in my dream, _did_ say this. I felt worthless. Lowly. As if the lowest, dumbest, smelliest kulak, the one all the other kulaks look down upon, was still better than me. It was horrible. I felt as if she was stripping my soul away like the skins of an onion."

Olga remembered her own experience with the exiled Elf-Queen. She suddenly felt sympathy. And picked up a table-knife herself.

" _Da._ The Elves did it to me too. I'm not laughing, Tasha. I actually in this moment feel some empathy for you."

"There was a little bit of me in there. Untouched. I wanted to ask Miss Sanderson-Reeves why she was doing this to me. She's harsh. But she isn't a sadist. Not in that way, anyway. Then I saw her _eyes_. Not hers. Something was using her shape, Olga. Pulling bad memories out of my head. Things I fear. Using them against me."

" _Da_. My experience too."

Natasha swallowed. She beckoned a waiter and asked for vodka. Olga asked the waiter to make it two. Large ones.

Then Natasha continued.

"The thing that was pretending to be my old teacher, the one who really, really, scared me, then offered me a contract. She asked if I was Assassin enough to take it, or would I even fail at this?"

Two large vodkas had arrived. They took them.

Olga listened attentively. The Elf, who had taken advantage of the way in that Natasha had given him – or perhaps _her_ – had manifested as a Night Terror, in the form of the one teacher who her cousin still had vividly bad memories of. Taking advantage of this, the Elf had then said. There are _reports_ about your cousin Olga. Not a full-blown contract as yet. But operational plans exist…

"Don't look at me like _that_ , Cousin Olga. There are files on _every_ important titled person on the Disc. Just in case they ever attract a contract. It's nothing _personal_."

"You tell me the Assassins have seriously considered inhuming me. And it's nothing personal? Well, carry on." Olga said, tartly.

 _It's very simple, you stupid girl. So simple even a nobly-born dolt like you can grasp it. You are Heiress to a Grand Duchy. Your cousin Olga is Heiress to a Grand Duchy that borders onto your inheritance. Even though she is somewhat estranged from her father, she is his only child. Your Uncle Nicholas has no choice. It must go to his daughter, regardless. Unless she dies. In which case according to the laws of inheritance it goes to the next oldest brother's eldest child and Heiress. Who is_ **you** _. You have an opportunity. To double the size of your inheritance simply by putting an arrow into the right place. Then you hold two out of the four Grand Duchies. And you are then within sight of a greater prize. Do we need to spell it out to you? You could become, if you also eliminate a couple more cousins, uncontested Tsarina. Natasha the Great, perhaps…"_

Olga listened.

 _Go to Lancre. You can be there inside a day. Your cousin Olga – isn't she so much better than you, by the way? More attractive. A greater leader. She has magic. She has the confidence and the trust of Lord Vetinari. What you had to work at, she has naturally. Your father admires her. He wishes she were his daughter and not you. You disappoint him. Olga does not. Well. She is fighting a war from the air. Accidents happen in wars. While her attention is distracted, a single arrow. Use one with a stone head so it will be taken for Elven when it is removed from the body. So simple, Natasha. Your cousin blocks your way. Liquidate her._

"The Elf went, then." Natasha said. "I was relieved."

Olga tried not to glare at her.

"But you didn't go."

Natasha smiled, weakly.

" _Nyet_. If the truth be told… well, in a funny sort of a way, I like having you around, Olgusya. And, well…"

Olga softened her glare. She noted the affectionate diminutive of her name. Just once, and Natasha had hastily corrected it.

"Tell me. What is the Guild price on me, please?"

"Provisonally, forty thousand."

"Hmmph. So little. Is it likely to go up at any time soon?"

Natasha smiled slightly.

"I said, _provisional_ , cousin Olga. That's a long way from actual. The big consideration is that you work for Sam Vimes. He gets _emphatic_ if he hears of a contract out on a Watchman. Also, you're a magic user. The Guild has long experience of what that means. We think long and hard about contracts on wizards and witches. You only get one go, for instance. And if you _miss_ on that one go, then…"

She beckoned the waiter again.

"Two more big vodkas, Sergei. _Spassibo_."

Olga noted the waiter's ethnicity. She wondered if Natasha had also seen the implications…

 _ **The Patrician's Palace, Ankh-Morpork.**_

Vetinari listened to the recording of the conversation, his agent translating the language for him. Dark Clerks skilled in shorthand and in the language being spoken were industriously transcribing the report. His operatives were very efficient at things like this. A written transcript would be available shortly. Vetinari listened, occassionally signalling for the playbacl to be puased whilst he clarified a point with the field agent who had been close enough to the subjects, most of the time, to hear everything.

 _NR then said to OR, besides, you're off the Register now, after Lancre. There'll never be a contract out on you. You're too important. If anyone goes after you, they're in trouble. So you're safe, Olga. From me or any Assassin. Now. Let's talk important things. I don't want to kill you and I think you don't want to kill me._

 _Agreed, OR replied._

 _NR: We're both going to be Grand Duchesses. And neighbours. So we need to work together, Olga. You've seen how our fathers and uncles squabble like cats in a sack because they all want to be Tsar. They can't work together. It's poisoned the family. I don't want that._

 _Agreed, OR replied._

 _It makes sense, Olga. We do different. Have you seen how our fathers cling onto the old ways? They can't see how we're bleeding away peasants who are running to the cities. Here in Ankh-Morpork, especially. Have you noticed how many Rus are coming here? We can't tie them to the land any more as bonded peasants. Irena was the first. She won't be the last._

 _OR and NR then discussed Sergeant Irena Politek of the City Watch. NR said that when she stopped being affronted at what a mere peasant was telling her, she stopped to realise that she was hearing truth because in Ankh-Morpork, IP no longer felt intimidated from telling a noble what she, a mere peasant, was really thinking._

 _NR: Olga, how many kulaks and mouzhiks think like her, inside? They go along with it, they're submissive, they bow, they tug the forelock. We nobles see that and think all's well and as it always has been. But what are they really thinking, inside? How many Irenas are out there?_

 _OR; Oh, you've noticed, have you?_

 _NR: It frightens me, Olga. I think we can't go along with the old ways any more. Lady T'Malia, in Politics classes, observed that the harder you push something down, the more likely it is to hit you in the face when it bounces back. We need to do different, Olga. In my Duchy and yours._

 _OR; So we liberalise?_

 _They discussed methods of liberalising their governance of their people for some time. The agreement was that as rulers they would give a little in order to give the governed more of a say in their country: the idea of something called a Duma was discussed, a representative council of all social classes, and ways of reforming and ideally abolishing serfdom were mooted. Then they discussed wider politics: they agreed that Zlobenia, the nation of which both are technically loyal subjects, was a complete dog's breakfast of a state that only held together because all its many and varied ethnicities hated the Borogravians. Meanwhile Borogravia, also a total dog's mess of a country with at least twenty different ethnicities, only held together because its citizens all hated the Zlobenians more than they did each other._ _ **(6)**_

 _They discussed the uncontested fact that their own Rus ethnicity was a majority in Zlobenia and a significantly large minority in Borogravia, and that if both Rus peoples were to ask why they were fighting each other, especially for rulers of a different ethnic group, things might eventually get interesting, and the political map might end up being redrawn. Both also expressed disdain for their notional Head of State, Prince Heinrich, describing him as a thick nie-kolturny brain-dead oaf of Fritz origin. Conversation then turned to Uncle Casimir, a Romanoff brother held in respect by both his nieces. It was noted that Prince Heinrich effectively exiled him as far away as he could, sensing a threat and a rival, but dignified this by calling it an ambassadorial appointment to a country thought of as a sweaty backwater armpit, Rimwards Howondaland._

 _The cousins parted on friendly terms, OR declining another vodka as she was due to take a Pegasus flight, wholly coincidentally, to Rimwards Howondaland, and she needed a clear head for this._

Vetinari smiled again, and noted some points for due reflection later. He wondered about a small bonus, nothing untoward, for Agent Sergei.

 _ **The Klatchian Embassy, Ankh-Morpork.**_

"Nobody saw you coming in?" the Military Attaché asked.

Mustafa ibn-Aleahira, a carpet pilot employed by the Ankh-Morpork Air Watch, shook his head.

"no, offendi. I took care to disguise myself as a cleaner-of-cesspits and was admitted by a rear entrance, as is fit and proper."

He indicated the large toolbag he was carrying. The military attaché nodded approval. He motioned his spy to be seated and graciously poured coffees. Mustafa knew the blend: in his case it was a special blend of Klatchian coffee, which promoted the telling of truth and the avoidance of evasive replies. It had an element of the _knurd_ about it, in fact.

They drank coffee and made small-talk together. When the soldier judged enough had been consumed, he asked the question.

"Tell me all you saw of the air war in Lancre."

Mustafa sighed, and spoke. At length.

The military captain listened. At great length. What he heard was not comforting. Ankh-Morpork, indeed, had an air force of some potency. He would have to report this back to his superiors in al-Khali. Who did not appreciate bad news.

The officer part-drew his sword. Mustafa winced.

"Did you personally slay any of the foul djinn?"

Relieved the drawing was only to touch the nearest available iron, Mustafa nodded.

"Three, offendi. Who tried to take my carpet. They died."

The officer nodded, approving.

"You were sent out as bait in a trap. By the clever and dangerous Lady Romanoff."

"It is her tactic for combat, offendi. To claim height and then to swoop down, driving all before her. And the women she commands are dangerous and skilled. The _djinni_ in the air who were intent on taking us did not look up to see what, in their turn, was descending upon _them_. From an even greater height."

The officer listened with mounting gloom as his spy – one of his spies - in the Air Watch related everything he had witnessed and participated in during the war in the skies over Lancre. A few years earlier, when the Leshp business had offered the perfect opportunity to eliminate a rival, and morons like Rust, backed by a hysterical mob, had given them a casus belli, Klatch could just have walked in. Ankh-Morpork barely had an Army, it could only cobble together a makeshift Navy, and it had nothing, nothing, to prevent a fleet of flying carpets from mounting an air assault, ferrying the best fighting soldiers in the Klatchian Army to wrest control of a defenceless city. Klatch had invested heavily in large long-distance carpets for ostensibly civilian purposes. They were still used these days for commercial air travel, offering a means of linking cities which was far faster than ships. Klatchian Carpetways had the monopoly and made vast profits. The journey still took days between, say, Caarp Town in Howondaland to Ankh-Morpork. But a ship linking these cities took five weeks.

And in war, those carpets were military transports. A whole regiment could be airlifted easily. Smaller fighting carpets offered air cover which would scarcely be needed.

Until now.

Vetinari had somehow turned the Leshp business to his advantage and had surrendered in a way that gave him all the benefits while Klatch had reaped only confused division and headaches.

He had used the years since to rebuild an Army – one whose generals were loyal to him. A new Navy was rolling off the slipways, combining innovation in design with weapons more powerful than any foe could match.

And now he had an Air Force. Ostensively a division of the police force and – most of the time – civil servants entrusted with law enforcement.

He was learning about what it could do for the _rest_ of the time.

He had learnt it could transport sufficient personnel and equipment to operate in improvised bases far from home in a largely self-sufficient way. Its leaders could plan and organise and deploy to great effect. They could take on superior numbers in the sky and win.

"So. Periodically squads of… _air policewomen_ – travel out of the City. They go to the Chirm mountains, sparsely populated and barren. They spend a full day practicing their skills. You have travelled out there with them, ferrying stores and equipment, and you watch what they do. You have even participated in such exercises."

"Let me show you, offendi." Mustafa said, reaching into his bag. Inside, he was wishing he could get family members out of Klatch to Ankh-Morpork, where the Khalif's special guard could not reach them. Compliance had been enforced by threats of what would happen to them if he did _not_ spy for Klatch. He felt bad about this. He respected, even liked, the women he served with. He also fretted about what Lieutenant Romanoff would do if she ever found out. And behind _her_ , Mr Vimes.

"What is the purpose of this?" the officer asked, receiving the modified crossbow. It was standard City Watch issue, but modified. Where the bolt would normally go, there was the square box of an iconograph.

"It is called an iconographic bow, offendi. When a witch in a mock air fight makes an attack approach on another, instead of a crossbow bolt she aims this weapon and pulls the trigger. It activates the iconographic imp who takes a picture. If the witch she is attacking is squarely in the picture, where a bolt would strike if fired, it is considered a kill. It also has to be taken from within seventy yards, the effective aimed range. Lady Olga considers this is a bloodless way of teaching her pilots how to get in close, and aim accurately."

The officer considered this.

"Is there an active imp in the box? We should kill it. We don't want it going back and reporting on where you have been."

"The box is inactive, offendi. I considered this."

The officer checked anyway. He grunted approval. Neither of them knew the box also contained one of the newest generation micro-imp recorders. Who was currently faithfully taking down everything that was being said. The next day, the recording would be retrieved and transcribed. **(7)**

Mustafa then told the Klatchian officer exactly what strategies were currently being developed to attack carpets. He should know, he'd been flying one. As he pointed out, the blind spot for a carpet pilot was directly underneath. You would not be aware. Until it happens. And then it's too late. An air witch could get into that blind spot, angle the nose of her broom slightly upwards, and then…

"I later saw many iconographs of my own carpet, offendi. Taken from underneath. Most of the time I was watching for other fliers where I could see them and because my eyes were elsewhere and there were many, four or five at a time, I missed the one coming at me from underneath."

"Insh'Offler." the Klatchian military attaché said, quietly.

"Insh'Offler." Mustafa replied.

 _ **Witwatersrand University, near Pratoria, Rimwards Howondaland.**_

Olga Romanoff steered Raduga Desh, her Pegasus, into a perfect four-hoof landing. She was relieved; she could still feel the two big vodkas and a couple of glasses of wine, a legacy of lunch with Tasha, taking the edge from her flying.

Vetinari had noted there was an unavoidable backlog of diplomatic and City business to clear, as for five or six days all Pegasus Service flights had been suspended due to the Emergency.

"I'm sure you will clear it soon, and the recipients will be understanding." he had said, adding, mysteriously "Your Uncle Casimir is Zlobenian Ambassador to Rimwards Howondaland, is he not? Give him my best wishes."

It had occurred to Olga in the thinking time in between drops.

Sergei the waiter. Who spoke Rus.

She wished she hadn't tipped him so much now.

But now she was on the sparse grass outside the Department of Magical and Mystical Studies. Many students and staff had gathered to watch her land: the Pegasi would always be awe-inspiring and new, to a lot of people who rarely saw them.

Olga smiled. It was good to be back to normal again. She smiled at the tall, thin, Wizard who came to meet her. He had red-blonde hair, a straggly beard, and a look of downtrodden pessimism, as if the worst was yet to come. He brightened on seeing her.

"Despatches for Direktor van Rijnswaand **."(8)** she said. "Fraternal greetings from Arch-Chancellor Ridcully. A great stack of research material on loan, with the compliments of Professor Stibbons. You can carry it, Doktor de Kockamaainje."

The young wizard nodded. He stretched out his arms for the expected books and files.

"Oh, Eddie?" Olga said. He turned to her.

Then she grabbed him and kissed him. Long and hard.

It was good to be back from a war. And back to normal.

After a while, Eddie de Kockamaainje happily carried her delivery for her.

 _ **Next chapter: maybe a few more postscripts to the war, but we're back to the Present after that where Olga is a Captain and dealing with the logistics of flying elephants. I know I promised you a wedding and there will be one – but next chapter?**_

* * *

 **(1)** Researchers at Unseen University have established that compared to sororial rivalry, a formerly alpha-male struggle relegates to Epsilon and sometimes even to Theta.

 **(2)** Nor mine. Had to read Wikipedia's article on Russian wine history and production.

 **(3)** She was Natasha's guest here. Natasha had chosen the venue, knowing it didn't normally allow lowly Watchmen in uniform, and only relented for Olga because she was an officer and perhaps a Gentlewoman. And certainly Natasha's guest. The restaurant had no issues at all with Assassins' Guild members. One-upmanship had begun at the door. Olga was already plotting vengeance. She would suggest somewhere informal for their next meeting, possibly the snug bar of the Bucket on Gleam Street, where an Assassin would be in a pub full of coppers.

 **(4)** I've named Natasha's mother somewhere else in the tales; can't remember what name I gave her, so "Leda" is a placeholder for now. So she's Natasha Alianovna {{AuntOfOlgavichnya}} Romanoff

 **(5)** Olga's best estimate of air kills, and she admitted it was only a guess, was around a hundred and eighty. One of the lessons of the war was that they really needed a far more accurate evaluation and recording system to tally claims and assess the damage done to the enemy. She just wasn't sure how.

 **(6)** thinking of Borogravia and Zlobenia as variations on a theme of Austro-Hungary: a small ruling class and dominant ethnicity of German origin holding down twenty or thirty times its number of non-German ethnicities, including a majority of Slavs. The Austro-Hungarian Empire eventually disintegrated after a long, ruinous, war.

 **(7)** Olga knew who the spies were and had a pretty good idea of their motivations. Vetinari had considered, advised, and introduced her to people. He considered it no bad thing if the Klatchians got a honest first-person account. But a record of what was said was also, he considered, useful.

 **(8)** Because anywhere on the disc where there's a school or university or faculty of magic, the Head Wizard will always get a suspiciously familiar name.

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 _ **Discovered from a search on the name that there are at least six people out there called Tatiana Grigorenko. And I really thought I'd assembled the name at random… ah well.**_

 _ **The only Sigrid Helgasdottir who shows up, on the other hand, is a ninth-century Queen of Denmark (well, Jutland), so I'm safe there.**_

 _ **The names Marina Raskova and Nadezhda Popova are a lift from Russian history – Soviet aviators of WW2. Damn, their photos make them look like women who would have got respect in Lancre.**_

 _ **Olga Romanoff is, of course, a real-life Russian with a legitimate claim to the Tsarate. I swear I did not know this when I picked the character name and any resemblance is of course et c et c.**_

 _ **Natasha Romanoff – well, Nimbus Llewellyn . Ask him. Sort-of-a-Russian woman who uses arrows to deadly effect – on Roundworld, an Avenger (the American sort, not somebody who knocks around with Steed), on Discworld, an Assassin.**_

 _ **Kiiki? Something must be going on in my head. I wanted a Finnish-sounding name for somebody who deliberately embodies the Finland siblings of "Scandinavia And The World". (knives, vodka and Perkele). I discovered an orchestral conductor is out there called Esa-Pekka Salonen. And I settled on "Pekkasaalinen" for my character…**_


	11. Five-Eighty-Eight

_**The Price of Flight – part eleven**_

 _ **V0.6. I wasn't a hundred percent happy with the first version as it was rushed out to get something out there. I realised on re-reading it was a bit rushed and even though longer than the usual run of things, it could be revised and improved upon. I also had a necessary corrective review from a reader who pointed out a bit that could be factually revised – happy to do that, reader Moriko no Hikari and I hope the correction makes the original comic point and respects your reality. After this it's back to elephants and other little scenes I am itching to write, such as new recruit Officer Schilling and what she brings to the Air Watch. Together with two more classes of recruit pilot hitherto rejected by the Air Watch but included owing to political pressure by Vetinari.**_

 _ **Still not perfect or (to me) completed, and I am likely to come back with Version 0.7.**_

 _ **Epilogue to the Battle of Lancre: The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard. Ten years after.**_

The total strength of the Air Watch and Pegasus Service now stood at fifty-one Air Witches and Pegasus pilots. They were supported by five carpet pilots who made a distinct little group of their own, a total of twenty ground Thaumaturgic Technical Officers **(1),** with thirty Feegle and gnomes who had their own part to play in the scheme of things. Other Watchmen were seconded to Olga's command in the Air Police, as was thought operationally necessary. There were seventeen active Pegasi, and two more foals rising to maturity. The two new foals had chosen their Witches, who were here getting training as and when their Steadings permitted. On top of that, the Service was actively recruiting new pilots, and aircrews, of the right temperament to fly in the new sub-squadron that was being formed. _So._ _Fifty-three pilots soon. At least._

It was rare and usually impossible to have all fifty-one Air Witches in the same place at the same time. Duty and the nature of the job meant that a large proportion of the duty pilots were elsewhere, over the City or on Pegasus Service runs.

Besides, at least half were part-time Specials, Witches with Steadings to run elsewhere, who put in a few days a week as they could, or else who were Reservists who came back for a few days a year to keep their skills up in the event of a general call-up.

It had to be a special event to get everybody together. So special, in fact, that Lord Vetinari suspended Pegasus flights for a few hours, and Mr Vimes accepted that there would be no air cover over the City for the same time.

Olga looked out from the window of her command office, on an upper floor that looked down over the Air Station. She looked down over the ranks of her command, who were standing at ease in ranks. Full dress uniform was the order of the day; for some, the newest pilots, it was the first time they were wearing it and the newness of it showed. For most, it was rarely worn and almost as new, scratchy and unfamiliar. Olga, who had to wear it more often than most **(2),** turned and took another look at herself in the full-length mirror she had brought up to the office for occasions like this.

 _No marks on the white. Everything cleaned and gleaming. Red braid and epaulettes in the right places. Lanyard straight. Boots gleaming. Leather polished._

Olga took another look.

 _Medals straight and in order. Better go down._

Olga took another look down to the landing strip, where her sergeants, Nottie Garlick and Hanna von Strafenburg, were performing the hitherto impossible, of getting fifty-one Witches moving and working in unity without argument or hesitation.

 _It's a common purpose. Flying. Everyone is here to fly. So they go along with the rest as part of their price of flight. And wearing a uniform._ Olga thought. _And three stripes are a sort of magical spell. Put a witch in a uniform, that she accepts of her own free will – nobody here is a reluctant conscript – and then give a couple of those witches the military Boffo of three stripes on each arm. Hanna, especially. She is born to this._

"Ready?" Olga asked. Lieutenant Irena Politek, her deputy commander, straightened the set of her sword, looked at herself in the mirror, and nodded.

Olga frowned at the third person in the room, a guest with a necessary function to perform here, who looked ill-at-ease and uncomfortable in a place where Olga had made it abundantly clear to him he was only present on sufferance. Or perhaps _probation_.

"Remember what I told you, _drughi_ , and we will get on just fine."

He nodded, mutely, and followed them downstairs.

They descended the stairs to the temporary parade ground together.

" _Achtung! Stillgestanden!"_

Olga tried not to blink at the impeccable coming-to-attention of her command. All her witches had at some point done basic foot drill, usually as part of initial Watch training. It was accepted that it gave Sergeant Detritus something worthwhile to do and filled any hiatus in the training day. When in doubt, get them on the parade square, was the motto.

After that, foot drill was usually not a great part of a Watchman's day, and salutes were usually the bare minimum necessary for courtesy.

Hanna right-turned, marched to her senior officers – Olga was relieved that this was normal military marching, not the absurd parade-march **(3)** – then stamped to an attention and a salute that would have brough tears of joy to the eyes of a Guards drill-sergeant.

"Senior Sergeant von Strafenburg begs leave to report forty-nine Air Witches of all ranks, thirty Gnome and Feegle Police Constables, five recruit pilots, and twenty-two ground personnel, are present and ready for your inspection, Frau Hauptmann, Fraulein Oberleutnant!"

Olga returned the salute.

"Others should join me on the inspection." she said. "As a courtesy."

She looked across to the roped-off area reserved for invited guests. As expected, he had arrived, quiet and without ceremony, in the company of Mr Vimes and Captain Carrot. She was relieved that her own twin children were behaving, having been told that this was Mummy at her work, so do not run to her until you are permitted to. And behave here with great respect. This is a solemn occasion. Other children present, sons and daughters of Air Witches, were also being quiet and subdued, their fathers, where present, here to care for them. She turned, marched a few steps, and saluted.

"The Air Watch is now present and ready for inspection."

She took in both the dignitaries, and very carefully did not specify to whom she was extending the invitation.

Vimes made a little sideways nod.

Lord Vetinari leant on his cane.

"Shall we proceed, Sir Samuel? Lead on, Captain Romanoff. Capital."

The two newest and currently most junior pilots in the Service were relegated to the rearmost rank, which didn't exactly allow for a grandstand seat. Both felt their newness; not painfully, but with a discomforting impression, being among all the experienced pilots and the veterans of the Service, that they still had much to learn. Neither wore a rank badge and the only distinctions they wore were the new and shiny arm-patches, the Flying Pig of the Air Police and the Pegasus-in-Flight of their other operational responsibility.

Ankh-Morpork City Watch Officer 523 was somewhere near the middle of the rank. Sergeant von Strafenburg had meticulously numbered them off by height, so the tallest were on the outside files and the shortest in the middle, which meant her friend and co-recruit, Ankh-Morpork City Watch Officer 517, was right on the edge.

Rebecka Smith-Rhodes watched the action as best she could through the ranks in front of her. They were in Open Order, which allowed a wide enough space for the inspecting party of dignitaries to pass through them. So far, Vetinari was a long way away, being genial with the Flight-Feegle, who were ranked in front of the pilots. She heard their voices in the otherwise silent assembly.

"And you are?"

"Flight-Navigator Wee Archie-Aff-The-Midden, sir." Olga's voice.

Bekki glimpsed, between shoulders in the forward ranks, Vetinari leaning forwards and down.

"And your duties are?"

"To guide my Hag and her Pegasus true, an' tae guard them faithfully, sir!"

It sounded as if Wee Archie had been patiently taught the words by rote.

"And if somebody were to try to do harm to your Witch or to her mount?" Vetinari asked. He sounded amused.

"Weel, sir, I'd pit the hems on them an' take the dirty scunner right tae the cleaners, nae bother! And I'd ask if his mother can sew an' I'd pit ma boot right intae his spog an'…"

"Thank you, Flight-Navigator." Olga said, hurriedly. There was a susurration of agreement from the other Feegle.

"I see the Pegasi are very well guarded, then." Vetinari replied. "Commendable."

"Miss Rebecka wouldnae be too pleased either." Wee Archie piped up, as Olga and Vetinari moved on. "Aye, she'd pit a fireball up his kilt in nae seconds nothing, an' roast the spogs right aff his sporran!"

It is hard for a commanding officer in full dress uniform to do the thing with her forehead and the palm of her hand, but something in Captain Olga Romanoff, viewed from behind, conveyed the essence of forehead and palm.

In the rear rank, Miss Rebecka winced slightly and thought back to six or seven months previously…

She and Sophie Rawlinson, the two newest Pegasus Service riders, had completed basic Watch training and were now being inducted into what the Service did. Sophie had been allocated to Olga Romanoff, and was accompanying Olga on the Howondalandian One route **.(4)** Bekki had drawn Hanna von Strafenburg as her mentor, and she had the Hubland States route **.(5)** They had agreed that Bekki got things like snow, ice, howling gales, freezing rain and mud. Sophie got to share desert heat, baking sun, jungle humidity, and places where lots of jolly interesting ailments might be picked up. The two girls agreed that if they averaged out their routes, they might get something with nice pleasant clement weather all year round.

The rest of the Air Division had accepted them equitably enough. Bekki and Sophie were pilots. Bekki had been training with them since she'd been eleven or twelve; her official mentor in Witchcraft had been Irena Politek, her Godsmother; however, the rest of the tight-knit group of fliers had inevitably all offered something to their Fledgling. Bekki had grown up with them in the background, taught mainly by one Witch – alright then, _two_ Witches; but with maybe twenty others all adding something to the mix. Sophie Rawlinson had arrived, brand new and sixteen, with her Pegasus. Bekki had explained what she knew about the ethos and mentality of the Air Watch to her friend.

"What's that other badge some of them wear?" Sophie had asked. "That sort of black tape on the left tunic breast. With _Five-Eight-Eight_ on it in silver. Looks like a medal of some sort. Not everybody's got that."

"I'm not sure." Bekki had said, honestly. "I know the pilots who wear it are the ones who've been here longest. They refer to each other as _five-eighty-eights_. I get the feeling it's one of those things you don't ask about if you're new."

Sophie nodded, understanding.

"Like the thing when the older Watchmen wear lilac. It's a mistake to ask out loud why. Then they have a _way_ of saying if you need to know, you weren't there."

Bekki nodded.

"Like lilac. And whatever it means, neither of us were there."

Sophie nodded agreement. Neither of them was in a hurry to go to Olga or Irena and ask, outright. "What's _five-eighty-eight_?"

They straightened their flying helmets and carried on down the stairs from the crew restroom to dispersal. There were missions to fly.

On the way they passed the other thing they were not in a hurry to ask about. It was a large wall-mounted sort of a plaque, almost a shrine. It was mounted _exactly_ where witches going to and from air patrols would see it all the time. It was designed to look like a side or front elevation of an Ephebian, maybe a Latatian, temple, with vertical uprights carved to look like stately columns supporting a pointy roof. It was carved in bas-relief, as if the building, at this place, had elected to wear a cameo brooch. The columns split the front face into three sections. Two remained blank; the left-hand column had what looked like six names carved into it, with dates. The bas-relief of the pointy temple roof protruded out some way, evoking the sort of sheltered corner where a Watchman might take advantage to bunk off for a smoke in the relatively dry and relatively un-windy.

At the highest point, just under the apex of the symbolic roof, was a carved representation of a Watch badge, bearing the number "588". And underneath was the carved motto

 _THEY PAID THE PRICE OF FLIGHT._

Bekki knew that 588 was Captain Olga Romanoff's Watch badge number. She wondered how this related to the 588 badge only some pilots wore.

Then she read the names. Only five, once you realised one name was repeated.

SIGRID GUDRUNSDOTTIR.

JENNIFER GRALOCK.

SALLY TREADAWAY.

Татьяна Е. Григоренко.

TATIANA E. GRIGORENKO.

DOROTHY CULPCLAPPER.

Bekki and Sophie read the names quietly, then each made a little Witch-bow and went on to find their Pegasi. From her upstairs office, Olga Romanoff watched, then smiled slightly. She wondered if it might not be worth taking the new girls aside sometime, and properly explaining. Then she shrugged and got back to work. It could wait.

 _Dorothy Culpclapper. I heard about her. Didn't her broom get over-loaded with magic one day? One of the Teks miscalculated. It exploded in the air. Tragic accident and a simple miscalculation…_

"Air Policewoman Smith-Rhodes, sir."

Bekki came back to the present and realised the Patrician was examining her. Olga Romanoff and Commander Vimes were just behind him.

"Yes. I recall the High Ataman of the Steppes was very taken with her." Vetinari remarked. Bekki frowned and remembered an ornately dressed and very senior Cossack who in terms of build and beard had instantly reminded her of both her grandfathers. She had defaulted to _Dealing With Oupa_ mode, which, together with a passing fluency in the Rus language, had assisted diplomacy.

Olga smiled slightly. Pegasus Service pilots were expected to think on their feet. She nodded at Bekki.

" _Da._ Miss Smith-Rhodes has some promise." Olga agreed.

Vetinari nodded.

" _удовлетворительный."_ Vetinari said. _Satisfactory_. He nodded. "I shall be hearing more of you, miss Smith-Rhodes." Vetinari said. "And, I rather fancy, of both your sisters." He nodded pleasantly, and raised an eyebrow to Olga, who didn't seem surprised at all that the Patrician was demonstrating fluency in her first language. They moved on.

 _ **Lancre, a decade previously.**_

The fight was over and the Elves had been defeated. The celebration party later had lasted well into the night **.(6)** The Air Witches had spent a lot of the next day packing up to move back to Ankh-Morpork, with nobody inclined to move too fast as the hangover and the post-combat weariness started to settle in. Olga and Irena had been in no mood to push too hard; and in any case they had another necessary task to organise. Leaving Nottie and the senior Tekniks to organise the return of personnel and materiel to the city, they were now with Magrat Garlick and other senior Witches.

"'T'aint a mortuary _as such_." Nanny Ogg said. "It's a cold room in the cellars. Kings of Lancre go down there when they're dead, and people up here is plannin' the fun'ral".

"A mortuary for kings." Olga said. "That will serve."

Nanny nodded, soberly.

"Three of your girls is down there, rest their souls."

She paused, uncharacteristically uncertain.

"We're just waitin' for the _fourth_. Errr…"

Magrat Garlick cleared her throat.

"Tiffany Aching has instructed those clearing the battlefield. Any human remains to be found are to be treated with respect and dignity and gathered together. There are a few, err, and how do I phrase this…"

"Problems." Irena Politek finished the sentence for her. "Sally ran straight into a fireball. What there is of her to be collected was spread out over a wide area. And we really don't think there is going to be much. Even after the most through search."

Olga nodded.

"If something of her, all that can be found, goes into a coffin, then that will be sufficient. I thank you for your kindness."

"Tiffany has the Feegle out looking. That's a hard job. But what there is of Sally to retrieve, they will find." Magrat replied.

"Please. No parts of elves should be mistaken for her and go into the coffin." Olga said. "That would not be…"

Magrat took her hand.

"Feegle _know_ and can tell the difference." she said, gently. "By the way, Tiffany was impressed with how you spoke to the young witch who put up the fireball. She sends thanks."

"Accident. A horrible one, but an accident." Olga said. "No point in being angry with the girl. She was broken up enough as it was."

Magrat smiled gently.

"There's a burial ground behind the Castle. Normally only royalty and faithful servants are buried there. But Verence and I were thinking. Four of you trained as Witches here. They came back and died fighting for Lancre. They should be buried here. Heroines."

"I got the lads together. They done dug four plots." Nanny said. "Time allows, I'll get a stonemason to do the headstones. Reasonable Rates **(7)** over in Creel Springs owes me a few favours. If you gives me the names, and an idea as to any picture you wants carvin'?"

Later in the day, the Air Watch gathered in the Royal Cemetery behind Lancre castle. Efforts had been made to polish boots and armour. Over to one side, a group of half-a-dozen newly minted witches, fresh from the Lancre coven, stood respectfully. They were travelling to Ankh-Morpork to finish their Witchcraft training as pupils of the Air Watch and would become Air Witches, eventually. Olga and Irena wanted them present here, so that they would have no illusions. Flying was a dangerous profession. Combat flying exponentially so.

Olga and Irena watched the scene. The Air Witches and the Tekniks were all present, and King Verence and Queen Magrat were here. A lot of other witches and Lancre folk had turned up. And there were Feegle. Rob Anybody, one of the prominent Big Men of the Clans, had respectfully explained he had had the local clans scouring the battlefield at the Chalk for Sally. He was keen to assure the Hag o'the High Airs that we did this thing _respectfully_ , Mistress, so that yon puir wee lassie would have a restin' place wi' as much of her as possible in the one place, aye. And we wus certain there is nae elf in the bag, ye ken.

"Oh aye, Big Yan!" another Feegle, known as Daft Wullie, had said. "Bits o' Elf, that smells different, ye ken, and most of the elves wus in _bigger_ bits than th-g _urgle_ …"

Olga had thanked them. And had the problem that there really wasn't much of Sally, even if her Watch badge was going into the coffin too. That had been retrieved, bent and part-melted, but you could still read her number; 503.

One of the old men from the Home Guard, veterans of long-forgotten battles, had beckoned her over and talked about old Chalky White, who stood directly in front of a Klatchian Fire Engine. Battle of… somewhere in Sto Helit, can't remember. Anyway. We had to have the coffin weigh right for the funeral, it would have been too _light_ otherwise, you see, ma'am…

Olga had learnt about one of the many uses of sandbags. And had given a discreet order.

Including herself and Irena, there were twenty-three Air Witches present. Six for most coffins. Olga assisted with Tatiana's coffin, as did Irena, Marina and Nadezhda; that was only right. She had also meticulously counted the number of flowers in each funeral wreath, removing just one each from two bouquets. _Not on Tatiana's grave. Some things are not right._ **(8)**

Ceremonial was minimal. But the Air Watch could do foot drill when it was needed, and impeccably so. King Verence had the sensitivity to keep his address short and to the point, Olga said a few words, then gathered her troops ranked by three ranks and seven files. She, Irena and Nottie stood off to one side.

"Let actions mean more than words." Olga said. "Front rank! Fire!"

Seven fireballs arched into the sky above Lancre and exploded with maximum noise. Olga repeated the command twice until a twenty-one fireball salute had been completed.

And the Air Watch dismissed.

Olga and her senior officers conferred. Then Olga spoke to Shawn Ogg, who was beginning to fill the graves. She explained that two of them should be left with the earth loose and not tamped down, for now. She had yet to speak to the families, who might ask for the remains to be repatriated to their distant homelands. I'll find out for definite.

Shawn nodded.

"The two forn girls. Shame, ma'am. Tatiana could out-drink anyone in the Goat and Compasses when she was here as a Witch. Remember she helped our mam with the distilling, and showed her how to do that vodka stuff from potatoes. Knew some rip-roaring forn songs, and played that banjo thing with the squared-off box."

Olga smiled, reflecting the Air Watch now had a vacancy for a balalaika player. And that if she'd lived, Tatiana might have grown old as a Rus version of Nanny Ogg.

"And Sigrid. Very, er, _beautiful_ , ma'am. Lots of the blokes round here looked at her, and thought…"

Shawn reddened slightly. Olga patted his shoulder, wondering why she suddenly wanted to weep.

"Da. Blonde. Not many girls here are… _were_ … that sort of blonde."

Olga turned, walked away, and found a quiet place to weep.

 _ **And in the present…**_

Commander Sam Vimes, Duke of Ankh, stood in front of the assembled Air Watch, wanting to blink at the assembled numbers, wondering how the Hells it had swelled from two or three Gnomes and Feegle with their birds, and two young Witches who had brought their own broomsticks when they signed on as Air Constables… to _this_.

Somewhere, a Pegasus whinnied. Vimes reflected that the stables up here could house only eight; they'd been designed and built when the Pegasus Service was a damn sight smaller. The overspill, nine or ten, were downstairs, temporarily, where the Mounted Watch and the Flying Squad stabled their horses and pursuit coaches. Not only them; Sergeant Dawson had drawn his attention to the two strange horses, the ones with a sword slung on one side of a saddle of unique and archaic design, and a selection of spears slung on the other. Those were not Watch horses. More like something a Hublandish warrior might have ridden into war on, a few centuries ago.

Later, Vimes reflected it had never even occurred to him, or to Sergeant Dawson of the Mounted Police, to do anything other than accept it as one of those things, to fodder the new horses and water them, to accept, for now, that they were there…

Upstairs, Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, who from the back was studying the ranks in front of her, noted the more experienced Air Witches had left exactly four gaps in their ranks, as if waiting for people to come along and fill them. She wondered about the four names on the memorial who she could not identify, and guessed this was both directly linked and symbolic, a memorial to old comrades.

She was surprised to see the two women walk across the parade ground and in some cases wholly or partially _through_ people, who didn't even notice. Both were blonde, one very strikingly so as if she were the walking rule, the epitome of blonde-ness who all other blondes took their instruction from. _Strive to look like this woman._ The other, the shorter one, who moved with a brash assurance, had darker blonde hair. Both were dressed in leather skirts, gleaming silver mail tunics and winged helmets; Bekki noted they both wore the obligatory sort-of- saucepan-lids, paired, like a very uncomfortable looking bra. And both carried long spears. Each took her place in one of the gaps in the ranks. The one who had the confident swagger seemed to notice Bekki watching her, then grinned and waved.

Bekki felt at home with this. Ah. Ghosts. That's what the four empty places are for. Other Air Witches seemed to have noticed too and seemed happy about this.

And now Sam Vimes was addressing the parade. Every so often he looked at the apparent gaps in the front rank, as if he was trying to make something out in an apparently empty space.

"Sigrid Gudrunsdottir. Jennifer Gralock. Sally Treadaway. Tatiana Grigorenko. And Dorothy Culpclapper." he said. He eyeballed the crowd.

"I'll start with Dorothy. What happened to her was a tragic accident. I'm told she took an unsafe broom into the air. It exploded or she crashed. Or both. That was a time when we needed brooms in the air quickly and maybe we were cutting corners on safety and somebody flying one more patrol than was wise, they weren't paying attention, or else a ground crewman left the switch on for too long, and put more magic in than the broom could hold. Maybe I was pushing you too hard to get air cover up there for Watchmen on the ground. Or something. The result was, we lost a pilot and a Watchwoman. Anyway, she's one of the five we are here to remember."

Vimes eyeballed the parade.

"Being a Watchman is dangerous. Every so often we lose somebody. Somebody who mattered, somebody we cared for, somebody who left people behind who miss them. It happens, then we come together and grieve."

He paused.

"Then the next day we get back to doing the job which is in front of us. Because we're _Watchmen_."

Vimes paused. He gathered his thoughts. He was almost sure he was seeing two women in old-fashioned armour and saucepan lid bras, standing in the gaps in the ranks… only when he looked directly at them, they weren't there. They were only visible through the corners of his eyes. He took a breath. Maybe he was working too hard or something.

"Eight years ago now, or was it nine. You did the job that is front of you as Watchwomen. Or rather, you did something I had to do years ago in Borogravia. When regular policing fails, you then have to go to the next stage. Which is what they call a _Police Action_. That's one of those grey areas in between the place where being a policeman ends, and fighting, and actual shooting wars begin. You could look on it as making sure there's a space left afterwards for normal policing to happen in. But while you're doing what you have to, normal policing is suspended for the duration, and you end up fighting a war. Which is what you did in Lancre. And in the Chalk. You went out and fought the elves."

Vimes touched the metal of his breastplate.

"You had to. No alternative. You made Lancre and the Chalk safe to live in. Against an enemy who wouldn't know Law if it came up and poked them in the eye. And four of you died doing it. That's policing. That's the Watch. That's the dangerous business you're in. As a pilot. As witches. But above all – as Watchwomen. I'm damn glad to know you all. And I'm damned privileged to have known the four of you who were killed."

He indicated the memorial stone.

"Five names. Dorothy, who died in a peacetime flying accident. Sigrid Gudrunsdottir. Jennifer Gralock. Sally Treadaway. Tatiana Grigorenko. Who died in a war. Lots more room on that memorial. Just… let it be a long time before the next names get carved on it."

He paused again, for effect. Then concluded;

Vimes paused. "That's twenty dollars call out and half a dollar a letter for a good stonemason, for one thing. Double that, if it's got to go on in two languages **.** "2 **(9)**

Silence, then a ripple of appreciative laughter. Vimes relaxed. He knew his Air Witches appreciated black humour.

"So whoever dies next had better have a _very_ short name."

More laughter.

"Captain Romanoff? I've seen your full name written down. _And_ you'd be a two-language person. So stay alive. We can't afford to lose you. Thank you."

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, a decade previously.**_

Lord Vetinari steepled his fingers and looked across the desk. Olga Romanoff, Irena Politek, and Nottie Garlick stood at attention, helmets tucked under their right arms. Sam Vimes was there too, lounging at a relaxed almost-attention.

"I trust miss von Strafenburg is recovering satisfactorily and is out of danger? As is Miss Heartsease and the new recruit pilot, Miss Glossop?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." Olga replied, politely. "Virginia's broken arm is mending well after Igor attention. She should be fit for duty within a fortnight. Matilda was merely concussed. She and the other new recruits – we have a total of eight who have had training in Lancre, who have no promise of a Steading, but who all show flying aptitude – are now to continue their witch training here, in the City, under our mentorship."

She nodded at Vimes.

"Mr Vimes is understanding that all Witches take pupils. We are finding them places to stay, and while they will continue to receive Witch training in the usual way, we are accepting them as Watch Cadets until they turn sixteen, and can then enter the regular Watch under the accepted agreement. Their training, with us, will focus on flight and flying skills."

"Capital. And miss von Strafenburg?"

Olga shrugged. She nodded to Irena.

"Hanna put out a massive amount of magic to fight the Elves." Irena said, touching her breastplate briefly. "So much that it nearly killed her. Fortunately, a Kelda who was supervising her people in the fight recognised the danger and used the _hiddlings_ – that is, specialised Kelda magic – to stabilise her and help her recuperate her strength and her vitality. Kelda Jeannie believes there are things in Hanna's head that need the soothings and the healings. Things from childhood and in her background which have left her _damaged_. Hanna is on indefinite leave to rest and to learn to see things differently. But I believe she will be back with us."

"Capital. I understand she is your starred, er, _ace_ , in air combat with Elves?"

" _Da._ The ace in the pack." Olga agreed. "We believe she took thirty-seven Elves in the air. And an undetermined number on the ground. Most of us were doing well to get less than ten."

"So her air combat experience will be invaluable in training new pilots for warfare." Vetinari said. "Capital."

"Kelda Jeannie considers that part of the problem with Hanna." Nottie Garlick said. "Up in the sky and fighting, Hanna didn't care if she lived or died, and might have welcomed it had she been killed in combat."

"A suicide jockey." Vimes said, reflectively. "Dangerous. And not just to the enemy."

Five people considered this in silence. Then Vetinari steepled his fingers again.

"It is perhaps time to consider a degree of remuneration." Vetinari said. "The thanks of a grateful City."

Olga looked at Vimes. He grinned.

Vetinari prompted her.

"On past experience of the City Watch, it is customary to ask for a dartboard at this point in the negotiations."

Olga smiled slightly.

"It would be a useful addition to the duty crew room, _da_." she said. "A sport that teaches hand-eye co-ordination and the accurate placement of thrown weapons."

She grinned.

"I will consider this. But first, the matter of flying pay, and bonus pay for time spent in a war zone? Also, I wish permission for a wedding."

Vetinari blinked.

"And the lucky.. the _truly remarkable_ young man, Lieutenant Romanoff?"

Olga smiled again.

"Not for me. For two of my command."

Vetinari looked at her.

"Lieutenant, it is customary that a person under command in a military…" he looked at Vimes, and corrected himself " – that is, a _mildly military_ – organisation, who wishes to marry, should go first to you, as their commanding officer? Or perhaps to Commander Vimes, as the commanding officer? You have the authority already, and you do not need to ask me?"

Olga and Irena both shook their heads.

" _Nyet."_ Olga said, firmly. "Not _this_ marriage."

 _ **And in the present…**_

Olga Romanoff stepped forward, saluted the memorial plaque, then stooped to lay down the memorial wreath **(10).** She stepped back again, saluted a second time, and stood back while Irena Politek stepped forward with a tray. She set out five shotglasses, and filled each with a measured amount of vodka. Then Irena too saluted and stepped back. The two then right-turned and marched away to the paraded troops.

Lord Vetinari addressed the parade. He spoke briefly about the proud traditions of the Air Service and said he had no doubt at all that if it came to it, they would fight as fiercely in the defence of Ankh-Morpork as they had for Lancre and the mix of youth and experience he saw, looking out over the ranks, was exactly the sort of vigorous blend that left him in no doubt of their expertise and ability. If those you have loved and lost were here, they would no doubt be proudest of all.

Bekki Smith-Rhodes saw him looking directly at where one of the mystery women in the saucepan-lid bras was standing, and wondered if he could see them too. _Maybe all he physically sees is a gap in the ranks. But he's worked out what the gap is there for, and he's deduced who will be filling it._

"Any war is waste." Vetinari went on. "A waste of people, resources and material. It destroys, it disrupts, and people are killed who might otherwise have lived. But sometimes it is inevitable. War over Lancre and the Chalk was inevitable. There would have been no treaty, no negotiation, with the enemy you faced. If that enemy had not been defeated in Lancre, they would have spread out. They would have come _here_. To face a larger battle with many more people killed, many more lives disrupted. You helped to avert that. Four of your number were killed in preventing a wider war that would have claimed uncounted lives had the enemy not been stopped there. For this you deserve our thanks. And thus we are here to remember our dead."

Vetinari nodded to Olga.

She looked over to her right.

"Musician, forward!" she ordered.

The young man in his best Black, his own uniform, stepped forward, and raised his trumpet to his lips.

Everywhere where there are militaries, everywhere in places where battles have been fought, something emerges which is variably given a name like Taps or The Last Post. This is primal. The Discworld was no exception. Olga Romanoff, realising her command had no horn players, had contemplated her list of friends and contacts and had brought in a trumpet player for the day. One of her pilots knew a trumpeter. He had been Persuaded.

And now the young man in his best Assassin black waited out the two minutes' silent remembrance, heard the frightening Hanna von Strafenburg call the parade to attention, took the nod from the even more frightening Olga Romanoff, and played Taps.

Irena and Olga had changed into their dress uniforms in the Commanding Officer's personal office. Vetinari and Vimes had both expressed reservations. Lord Vetinari had said he appreciated that the Air Watch and Pegasus Service had a very strong Far Überwaldean ethos to it that appeared to be developing into a Service Tradition, and he had no desire to interfere with that, but, nevertheless. The uniform they'd chosen, he could not help noticing, evoked the Cossacks of the Vortex Plains and the Far Steppes. Certainly eye-catching and stylish. It looked good. But, just perhaps, some small concession might be made to the fact they were working for Ankh-Morpork? Some form of headwear, perhaps, drawn from the Morporkian military tradition?

"Lose those fur caps." Vimes had said.

It had helped that Lady Olga Romanoff got lots of invitations to Society events. The ones she could not diplomatically avoid could be hard work, but sometimes there were compensations. Even at a reception hosted by Lady Rust, where she met officers of one of the family cavalry regiments. Olga had to admit that while they were a bunch of rather hearty Henries and Ruperts, their uniforms were striking and designed to impress. She suspected that the more impressive the uniform, the less substantial the man inside it, as if one had been designed to compensate for the other.

Effortlessly fending off propositions and passes, she asked about the uniform, which looked very vaguely familiar in a way she largely couldn't place.

"Oh, based on fighting cavalrymen out of Far Überwald, Lady Olga." the Hussar Captain said. "Called _huszars_ , or _gusars_ , or something like that. Out of the Magpyr country."

It rang bells; Olga was aware of a people called the Magpyrs or Magyiria **(11),** or something like that, who spoke a truly jaw-breaking language with too many z's in it, and were reputed to be good with horses. She'd never really met any; Überwald was a big place, and the Escrow region was a long way from her home.

"Tell me about the headwear." Olga had said.

"Ah. Well. We've been wearing the busby fur cap for three centuries now, my Lady. It's been around so long a part of the Ankh-Morporkian military tradition. Originally it was called a _czapo_ or a _shapska_ or something like that."

"Really? And this coloured flap hanging over the side?"

"Called the busby bag, ma'am. Not sure at all what that was originally for."

Olga turned it over in her hands and noted the maker's name inside. She smiled slightly.

"A long-established part of the Ankh-Morporkian military tradition? I thank you."

The Air Watch got to retain its modified Cossack fur caps. Albeit with a bright red busby bag hanging over the left side. **(12)** Vetinari had raised an eyebrow, smiled slightly, and said nothing.

And Olga checked the set of her busby, as footsteps came down the corridor and there was a knock on the door.

"Enter." she said.

It was one of the younger Air Watch members.

"I brought him here, as you requested,. Err.."

"Thank you. Leave him here, _devyushka_. You may leave. I wish to speak to him privately."

Olga noticed the way she squeezed his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. She waited until Rebecka Smith-Rhodes had departed again, and nodded to the young man in black who was holding the instrument case.

"Andrijs du Pris, known as Ampie." she said. "Thank you for coming here today of your own free will. And, _this_ time, at my invitation."

The final-year student Assassin looked nervous.

"Rebecka esked, ma'am. You required a musician, a horn player?"

" _Da._ I asked. Rebecka suggested you. You know what is to be done?"

"Yes, ma'am. I hev been practicing."

Olga studied him for a while.

"Good." she said. " _Horoscho_. Now. Despite being dressed as an Assassin, I believe you are more of a musician. There is a form of words musicians are obliged to say at such times as this. Say the words now, if you please, so that we both know where we stand."

Ampie gulped.

"Errr…"

The words weren't quite coming. He forced them out.

"Will I be paid for this gig, ma'am?"

There was a long silence. Then Olga smiled slightly. She withdrew a folded piece of paper from a pocket and slowly, silently, unfolded it. Irena was standing slightly behind her to the right, her arms folded. She was also intently watching him.

"Some time ago, _brat_ , you entered this place without leave in order to deliver chocolate." she said. **(13)** "We have not forgotten, and the relevant statute of limitations has not yet expired. This is a warrant for your arrest, for trespass on Watch property, intrusion on a place considered vital to City security, and for being an Assassin in a place where Commander Vimes does not welcome Assassins."

Olga let this sink in.

Irena Politek gave him a little smile

"Six months in the Tanty should be a learning experience for you." she remarked. "I'm sure the Assassin's School will understand and defer your studies."

Ampie swallowed again. Then Olga refolded the paper.

"Do what you are here to do and do it well, and I'll tear this up. That's the price for the gig."

"You won't get a better offer." Irena added.

"Rebecka would visit you in prison, I think." Olga said. "Now let us go downstairs. You will be escorted, of course, while on Air Watch premises."

Ampie did what he had to.

Afterwards, as the notes echoed to silence, Olga nodded at Hanna. The order to dismiss the parade was given.

The official ceremonial was over. The Tekniks had laid a table out with lots of glasses and bottles on it. Olga raised her voice and called

"Five-Eighty-Eight!"

The women called forward all wore the silver on black 588 badge, Bekki realised, apart from several of the invited civilians, all women, who came forward. They had the look of ex or retired pilots of the Service about them, women in their late thirties and forties, whose body language and look all said, from some angles, _Witch_ and from other angles _Pilot._ The first round of vodkas went to them, anyway. Bekki and Sophie watched, Bekki relieved she wasn't for the moment included in the drinking.

"That's _five-eighty-eight_ , then." Sophie said. "All the ones who fought in Lancre."

"The combat veterans." Bekki agreed. She looked over and frowned.

"Bekki, you see them too?"

"Yes. I'm thinking, Sophie. Women with flying horses who are drawn to wars and fighting. It's in their job description. _Valkyries_. And Olga's pouring vodkas for them."

"Ye gods! Valkyries come _here_? I suppose it's logical. Maybe they're Air Watch members in their spare time, do you think?"

Sophie paused, as a thought, an irresistible horse-related thought, hit her. "Hey, I wonder where their horses are? If they can fly horses without wings, I wonder how it's done? Shall we see where they've stabled them?"

They decided to go off together to check the stables. A party was breaking out around them, or at least an Official Reception. Caterers were now bringing up a buffet with light snacks.

 _ **Ankh-Morpork, a decade previously.**_

The wider Watch welcomed the Air Division on its return Home. The canteen at Pseudopolis Yard became an informal welcome-home party venue, where the pilots and the Tekniks were backslapped, hugged, kissed and drinks provided for. Vimes tolerated this, so long as nobody got drunk who was actually on duty. After a while, the welcome-home party spilled over to the Bucket on Gleam Street, the Watch local.

Marina Raskova and Kiiki Pekissaalen soon realised people were looking at them. They shrugged. They were used to it. A drinker at the bar, one who was not Watch, and who had been nursing a tall gin as if she had all the time in the world, came over to join them.

"Alice." Marina said, welcoming a friend.

"Hey, you long thin streak of piss!" Kiiki said, affectionately.

Alice Band frowned, then grinned. You had to make allowances for Swommis. It was as if an entire nation had been born with a tendency to coprolalia, the thing that went along with Tourette's and was often mistaken for it. Besides, anyone crazy enough to call an Assassin a long thin streak of piss... they had to be lunatic. Or Swommi. Alice hugged them both.

Kiiki hugged back, fondly.

"So what brings you here?" she said.

Alice grinned.

"Got a message to be here." she said. "Via Olga. She said I might be needed."

They settled with drinks as the pub filled with Watchmen of all genders and species.

"So you got through it alive." Alice said. "What's next?"

Marina looked thoughtful.

"We fought in a war." she said. "We both lived. Although _she_ got herself shot down".

"So? I lived. Got up there again. Got a few more." Kiiki said, indifferently.

Marina shuddered.

" _I nearly lost you_." she said, accusingly.

Marina turned back to Alice.

"I'm thirty-three. I'm the oldest pilot in the force. I feel like I'm losing my edge. Surrounded by teenagers. I do not want to do this any more."

Alice nodded, sympathetically.

"We've talked about leaving. I have been a witch since I was eleven. I have been a Watchwoman for nine years Ever since Olga and Irena opened the door for Witches. One of the first, after them. But right now, after being terrified for a week, I'm thinking of resigning. Go back to Blondograd, as a normal everyday Witch."

"Or else up to _my_ country." Kiiki said. "We settle there together. Build a Steading. As Witches."

Marina's face fell.

"What I want, really want, is to go there _married_. To you, Kiiki. More than anything else in the world. But no religion allows it."

"And practically every country in the world doesn't allow same-sex marriages." Alice said, sympathetically. "Have you thought there's _one_ Goddess who'd make it holy?"

Kiiki looked at Alice, long and hard.

"What do you know, long thin tentpole?" she demanded.

Alice grinned. Ever since she'd first met Marina and Kiiki at the Blue Cat Club, she'd wondered why she was so amusedly tolerant of being casually abused. Nobody else _dared_. Maybe that was it. Kiiki was different.

"Olga knows about you both. She had an idea. Olga?"

Olga Romanoff came to join them. She smiled.

"I know you both want to resign. I'll be sorry to lose you. Will you stay on as Reservists? Come back a couple of times a year for refresher training? Anyway, I think I've got you a leaving present. And we're all here. To celebrate."

The crowd of Watchmen was parting like a desert sea in front of a Prophet with a staff. The person working his way to them leant on his stick and smiled a small smile.

"Officer Raskova and Officer Pekkisaalen, I believe? I believe you wish to marry. Would a civil partnership do?"

He looked across to Alice Band and then back to Kiiki and Marina.

"Miss Band, I believe, comes from a long line of Priests. I know she is, in the main, rather cynical about organised religion. However, she has a particular affinity with one Goddess and in these circumstances might consent to be the voice of her goddess in the world. And yours too, I believe? Capital. Shall we commence?"

Lord Vetinari bade them stand. Behind and around him, people like Sam Vimes, Angua von Überwald and Irena Politek were appearing.

He intoned

"By the authority vested in me by the laws and statutes of legally constituted government of the twin cities of Ankh and Morpork, I believe I am entitled to conduct a marriage ceremony for two naturalised citizens of this City, both the named individuals having earned the right to Ankh-Morporkian citizenship, due to their service in its City Watch."

There was more of the same. It resulted in Marina and Kiiki being named partners in legally constituted marriage both in the eyes of Man and under the Gods, specifically those of the goddess Dike, represented here by her Priestess, Miss Alice Band…

 _ **Still not quite finished. Look out for Version 0.7 at some point.**_

 **(1)** Including the new recruits, who were there to fulfil a special new task and who Olga had some lingering reservations about. Vetinari, without actually over-ruling her, had said that there were _other considerations_ to take into account, but of course, the final decision is entirely yours, Captain Romanoff. Mr Vimes had sighed and said "I do know how you feel, Olga, and most of them are not people I'd think of employing for five minutes. But as there's already one of them in the Watch, we've conceded the principle and it's makes it more difficult to say"". Just… give them a fair try, would you?"

 **(2)** Olga had chosen the uniform. It was a perk of command.

 **(3)** Because even for Hanna von Strafenburg, there are limits. Hanna's was goose-stepping. She had decided early on that Junker daughter of a Generalleutnant and an inheritor of the proud Prussican military tradition or not, some things were just taking it too far.

 **(4)** all the states, nations and tribal groupings to the Turnwise of an arbitrary line drawn down the middle of the continent. This meant places like Djelibeybi, Tsort, Syririt, Ymitury, the Central Plains, Matabeleland, Smith-Rhodesia and Rimwards Howondaland.

 **(5)** This run included Island, the Skaggeraks, Hubsvensska, Nothingfjord, the Swommi country, the Vortex Plains, the Steppes and some states of Upper Aceria.

 **(6)** The Air Watch had brought several crates of vodka with them as part of Essential Stores. Olga had accepted several bottles would end up in Feegle mounds round Lancre, apart from the one that had gone into Nanny Ogg's knicker leg, and decided to put it down to wastage, when indenting for replacements for equipment lost on combat. Her only need to intervene had been when Nadezhda and Irena had suggested demonstrating the Sword Dance at the top of the great staircase of Lancre Castle. So everybody could see. Olga had pointed out this was _not_ a good idea after a lot of drink. Otherwise, the pilots had let their hair down and re-adjusted to peacetime.

 **(7** ) It's like this. Mr and Mrs Mason of Creel Springs had two sons to go into the family stone-carving trade. The oldest boy was called Free. The younger brother wasn't so much named as marketed; he became Reasonable Rates Mason.

 **(8)** Tiffany Aching noticed and asked Irena. "A custom in our country." Irena said. "You were not to know. In most circumstances an even number of flowers is bad luck. There must always be an odd number. **(8.1)** The only exception is at a funeral where a bouquet or a wreath must always have an even number of blooms. Olga was making sure."

 **(8.1)** Still the rule in Russia – never give a Russian woman a bouquet with an even number of flowers in it. Otherwise it can be taken as meaning – "Drop Dead!" Thirteen roses – _never_ twelve - is very acceptable.

 **(9)** Actually double and a half: the stonemason had frowned at the Cyrillic letters and asked for a bit more as extra.

 **(10)** This one had an even number of flowers in it, as per Tradition.

 **(11** ) Their noble overlords, the de Magpyr family, had more of a bloodsucker streak than usual in their dealings with the peasantry.

 **(12)** And in the case of people like Olga, Irena and Nadezhda, their respective Cossack heraldry in the crown.

 **(13)** go to my tale _**Strandpiel**_ , in which a Man In Black braves mortal peril to leave chocolate for his lady love, all because the lady loves higgs And Meakins' Finest Assorted milk Chocolate Platter.

 **Notes Dump** _ **: think of it as a sort of dispersal area for recovered ideas which can be cannibalised for spare parts so as to get new ideas up into the air again.**_

 _ **Not sure how to use this yet. But. FB discussion:**_

Me: Discussed this at work yesterday. how to translate the IT helpdesk motto "have you tried switching it off and switching it back on again?" into dog- Latin as our Guild motto. A bit of frustrating work with Google Translate - how do you put a twenty-first century technological cliché into a first-century language without garbling it totally? - came up with "Deiugo est. Et iungo iterum."

Alysson Rowan In Klingon, that comes out as:

'oH leQ DoH 'ej jatlhqa' vInID SoH?


End file.
